from:"Steven Jamar"

Re: John Lofton/Oaths

2005-07-29 Thread Steven Jamar

Jim, are you seriously saying that pluralistic and tolerant are not able to mutually exclusive?  A society cannot be both pluralistic and tolerant?  I've never heard tolerance offered in contrast to pluralistic.  I've only ever seen them hand in hand -- we are pluralistic and tolerant of difference that comes along with being pluralistic.  I guess I've missed something.While I may not substitute salt for sugar, I will use both in one recipe.SteveOn Jul 29, 2005, at 6:23 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:   In a recent posting, the term pluralistic was used to describe our society.  Word choices are, or are not, deliberate.  I was trying to flush out the choice, and its purpose.  I "pressed" the question only in the sense that I continue to ask for arguments on one side or the other.  I am asking because I come to the table with an impression about these two words and what kind of thinking is reflected in the choice of one or the other.   In this case, the choice was pluralistic, rather than tolerant.  We may be pluralistic by design.     I have also read and heard, especially in an earlier day, our society referred to as a tolerant one.  And in those cases, tolerance was offered in contrast to pluralism.     Obviously, neither pluralism or tolerance are adopted by those terms as the official governmental ethic in the Constitution of the United States.  Perhaps some use the terms interchangeably, even though they would never substitute salt for sugar in a cookie recipe.     I asked whether a textual argument for one choice or the other exists.  After all, if the Constitution makes us one or other, rather than our preferences doing so, the proof of the point should be at hand.     Jim Henderson Senior Counsel ACLJ  --  Prof. Steven D. Jamar                               vox:  202-806-8017 Howard University School of Law                     fax:  202-806-8567 2900 Van Ness Street NW                   mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Washington, DC  20008   http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar/  "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.  It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction."  Albert Einstein  ___
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Re: John Lofton/Oaths

2005-07-29 Thread Steven Jamar

OOPS.  I meant mutually exist.  An editing problem.  Sorry.SteveOn Jul 29, 2005, at 8:04 PM, Steven Jamar wrote:Jim, are you seriously saying that pluralistic and tolerant are not able to mutually exclusive?  A society cannot be both pluralistic and tolerant?  I've never heard tolerance offered in contrast to pluralistic.  I've only ever seen them hand in hand -- we are pluralistic and tolerant of difference that comes along with being pluralistic.  I guess I've missed something.While I may not substitute salt for sugar, I will use both in one recipe.SteveOn Jul 29, 2005, at 6:23 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:   In a recent posting, the term pluralistic was used to describe our society.  Word choices are, or are not, deliberate.  I was trying to flush out the choice, and its purpose.  I "pressed" the question only in the sense that I continue to ask for arguments on one side or the other.  I am asking because I come to the table with an impression about these two words and what kind of thinking is reflected in the choice of one or the other.   In this case, the choice was pluralistic, rather than tolerant.  We may be pluralistic by design.     I have also read and heard, especially in an earlier day, our society referred to as a tolerant one.  And in those cases, tolerance was offered in contrast to pluralism.     Obviously, neither pluralism or tolerance are adopted by those terms as the official governmental ethic in the Constitution of the United States.  Perhaps some use the terms interchangeably, even though they would never substitute salt for sugar in a cookie recipe.     I asked whether a textual argument for one choice or the other exists.  After all, if the Constitution makes us one or other, rather than our preferences doing so, the proof of the point should be at hand.     Jim Henderson Senior Counsel ACLJ -- Prof. Steven D. Jamar                               vox:  202-806-8017Howard University School of Law                     fax:  202-806-85672900 Van Ness Street NW                   mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Washington, DC  20008   http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar/"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.  It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction."Albert Einstein  ___To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.eduTo subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlawPlease note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private.  Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.  --  Prof. Steven D. Jamar                                     vox:  202-806-8017 Howard University School of Law                           fax:  202-806-8428 2900 Van Ness Street NW                            mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Washington, DC  20008           http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar  "For all men of good will May 17, 1954, came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of enforced segregation. . . . It served to transform the fatigue of despair into the buoyancy of hope."  Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1960 on Brown v. Board of Education   ___
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Re: Humpty Dumpty, James Madison, the States and Meaning

2005-07-27 Thread Steven Jamar

There is, of course, one basic problem with Gene Garman's argument to the extent it is premised on the First Amendment before the Civil War Amendments.  It says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . ."  By its terms it did not limit what states can or cannot do.  On this point even Jim Henderson would agree with me, I think.The Civil War Amendments rewrote the Constitution and rebalanced the powers and through the incorporation of most of the Bill of Rights through the 14th Amendment guarantees of liberty and the incidents of citizenship, states also became limited by the establishment restriction.But, until then, the state restrictions were within state constitutions and statutes.  Congress, of course, had power over the territories (hence the Reynolds case).Madison may have been consistent about not wanting government at the state, federal, or local level to impose religion and wanted a clean separation -- but that is not what the 1st amendment of his time did other than at the federal level.That said, Madison's comments are relevant.  But they are not determinative.  And just looking to them to explain the meaning of "respecting establishment" indicates  my point that the words are not so clear as to be self defining except as to a certain core meaning (e.g., no national church).  If the words were themselves so clear, why the appeal to an interpretive aid like Madison's writings?No single method of interpretation is sufficient for this complex area.  Fortunately the Court has recognized this.  Whatever else it has done and will do with EC and FE, we can expect that it will not go the way of simplistic even naive reading of the Constitution.  Witness the continuing witless use of the 11th Amendment . . . .Steve                 On Jul 27, 2005, at 10:44 AM, Gene Garman wrote: The suggestion that the position of James Madison was inconsistent in respect to religion and government is simply not sustainable. In Madison's 1785 draft of his "Memorial and Remonstrance" against religion assessments (taxes), that is, against the "Bill establishing a provision [tax money) for Teachers of the Christian Religion," Madison uses "establishment" seven times. His First Amendment understanding of "an establishment of religion" is documented again when as President he vetoed two religion bills passed by Congress (neither of which was overturned) and declared them unconstitutional violations of the Establishment Clause.   [snip] --  Prof. Steven D. Jamar                               vox:  202-806-8017 Howard University School of Law                     fax:  202-806-8567 2900 Van Ness Street NW                   mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Washington, DC  20008   http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar/  "If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him.  An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."  Benjamin Franklin  ___
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Re: Of the indefiniteness of Constitutional terms

2005-07-26 Thread Steven Jamar

I don't think Jim and I are as far apart as he may think here -- but language is hard to get right in this sort of dialogue. I do not think the donative meaning of each word should change with time.  For example, the intellectual property clause would be very difficult to apply today if we used the terms "science" and "useful Arts" in what would probably be the modern meaning of those terms as opposed to what they meant 2 centuries ago.  On the other hand, if we limited "writings" to only those things that were considered "writings" 2 centuries ago, many "writings" would not be subject to copyright.  A similar problem exists with "discoveries."If we understand those terms in their 18th century and early 19th century meaning, then most of the concerns disappear.  But not the ones relating to "writings."Do we really want to amend the Constitution every time a new technology comes along?   Nah.  But perhaps Jim's approach which would require at least one IP clause amendment per century would be better than our current approach to interpreting it, though I don't really think so.  I think pushing "writings" to include webpages, photos, sound recordings, movies, TV, and radio is fully legit.In a similar way the technological changes and sociological changes and structural legal and political changes in the past 200 years constrain and affect the meaning of the EC and FE clauses.  Here is where I do believe Jim and I inexorably part company.  The words simply must be pushed into service in changed circumstances.  It is in this sense that I think they belong to us and not just to the first generation to ratify them.  I do not think that the words themselves are infinitely pliable in meaning, however.  Perhaps my distinction here is to "nice" (how's that for a word with changed meanings over time?) -- the distinction between (1) the dictionary meaning of term changing the meaning of the constitution on the one hand (Jim and I mostly agree this should not happen) and (2) a term being pressed into service that was not part of the original understanding (e.g., "writings" in the IP clause).SteveOn Jul 26, 2005, at 9:44 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 7/26/2005 9:30:16 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I agree   that one should use an author's intent to help define words and find   meaning.  But the words of a document such as the Constitution do not   belong just to the person who first drafted them or who transcribed them or   even to the body that collectively wrote them.    The words of the   Constitution belong to the people who ratified it as well as to the people   living under it today.  Steve and I almost agree.  I would only have said, the meaning of the words of the Constitution belong to the people who ratified it . . . .   Of course, there's a lot of difference in that difference.  By allowing the meaning of the Constitution to change as the peoples' understanding of language changes obviates one important function of the amendment provision of the Constitution.  Another obviation is in judicial constructions:  Thomas Jefferson was keen, and I share his feeling, for a written document of certain scope and meaning.  His feelings about the Revolution of 1800 being confounded by a judiciary populated by Federalists and the dangers inherent in letting judges decide what the Constitution means rather than being bound to a written text are eminently sensible IMHO.   Jim Henderson Senior Counsel ACLJ___To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.eduTo subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlawPlease note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private.  Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. ___
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Re: The Faith Of John Roberts

2005-07-26 Thread Steven Jamar

The area of religion and law presents a challenge to the notion of  
rule of law.  The phrase rule of law, like the term law itself,  
becomes increasing problematic the more rigorously one tries to  
define or otherwise delimit it.  This is a problem philosophers  
always seem to have with law -- the essentially utilitarian nature of  
it and of the terms we use in it do not lend themselves to  
philosophical rigor.


Rule of law in the international development community typically is  
used in contrast to either an anarchic situation or to a system of  
political and personal whim.  It is a system that provides some  
greater regularity and permits one to plan and to rely on those plans  
with respect to the laws being applied.  It does not refer to a  
system of law that has no ambiguities, no exceptions, no fuzzy areas,  
no difficult questions.


It seems to me that the phrase rule of law is  used in the US as  
yet another code word for whenever a judge interprets a law  
(including the Constitution) in a way the person does not like.


The problem with the phrase in religious freedom discourse is that  
the law itself is so mushy and difficult to understand and apply as  
one drifts ever so slightly from the core meaning.  All of the  
justices are in almost all cases applying the rule of law -- the  
meaning of the constitution as they understand it from whatever  
stance they may take toward it.  In a few cases the court does engage  
in policy-making and rule-making -- unavoidably in my experience and  
understanding -- it is a Supreme Court we are talking about and a  
Constitution we are discussing.  It is not a law like stop at stop  
signs.


In Rosenberger two principles of law clashed.  The dissent chose one  
set of principles (separation) the majority chose another set (fuzzy  
neutrality plus speech).  Both were applying established rules of  
law.  Both were in compliance with  the dictate to adhere to the rule  
of law.


There are only a handful of cases where the court has really stepped  
into open space with scant guidance from precendent -- but even there  
one finds some fidelity to the rule of law.  Brown is premised on the  
14th Amendment.  Roe on privacy found in substantive due process.   
Bush v Gore is perhaps the most lawless decision, but even it is  
premised on necessity and dressed in rule-of-law dress.


The 10 Commandment cases illustrate the problem nicely.  Are any of  
the opinions not based upon a rule of law?  Isn't the rule of law  
problem in them what happens when a Judge Moore defies the rules set  
by the courts?


These cases are decided on various principles -- not on the basis of  
clearly set boundaries created by hard-edged rules.  Personal  
experience and opinion and beliefs enter into them -- unavoidable.   
But that does not make them outside the rule of law.


I suppose Roberts to simply mean that he will try to follow precedent  
and text where it can be done.  But I'm sure we will see from him, as  
we see from EVERY justice that deciding cases is a lot harder and  
involves a lot more than can be captured in any single catch-phrase.   
Especially in the area of freedom of religion.


Steve





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Re: what does the right REALLY think of Roberts?

2005-07-25 Thread Steven Jamar

On Jul 25, 2005, at 6:07 PM, Gene Garman wrote: Words mean things or the Constitution is nothing more than a blank piece of paper. This is a faulty dilemma. Of course words mean things. But they are not so hard-edged and clear as to be incapable of multiple meanings and there are always things that need interpretation.As to "respecting establishment" -- that is very hard -- does it mean just cannot establish a religion or does it mean that it cannot pass any law that would favor any sort of religious activity as well as many other possible meanings. These phrases have meaning that is a core meaning that we all (or nearly all) agree upon. But as one moves from that core, the reach of the terms becomes less clear.Steve The wording of the religion commandments of the Constitution are very specific: 1. "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States" (Art. 6., Sec. 3.). 2. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" (First Amendment). What part of "no religious test shall ever be required" or "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" is difficult to understand? James Madison, Jr., as "Father of the Constitution" and a member of the six member Senate-House Conference committee, in the First Congress, which drafted the final version of the First Amendment, is a primary source authority as to the meaning of those words. For starters, I suggest reading his "Detached Memoranda," in which he wrote "Strongly guarded ... is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States," William and Mary Quarterly, 3:555. Then, read his February 21 and 28, 1811, veto messages to Congress, relating to unconstitutional religion bills passed by Congress. Madison will tell you, for example, that the religion commandments were intended to include more than just "a national religion" or a state church. Gene Garman, M.Div. America's Real Religion www.americasrealreligion.org ___
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Re: RLUIPA Unanimously Upheld in Cutter

2005-06-01 Thread Steven Jamar

My guesses:On Jun 1, 2005, at 9:30 AM, Marc Stern wrote: Footnote 8 in Justice Ginsburgs opinion suggests that the state has no obligation to pay for aninmates devotional accessories. What does this sentence-which involved no issue litigated in Cutter mean for the cost of chaplains (especially for minority faiths),not an "accessory"; obligation to permit; not pay forfor religious diets,the footnote means little here, but religious diets will need to be accommodated unless truly excessively burdensome -- some additional cost will need to be borneor for that matter the administrative costs of complying with RLUIPA, state must comply and pay more to do so -- but need not buy special clothing, icons, altars, etc.Marc Stern -- Prof. Steven D. Jamar vox: 202-806-8017 Howard University School of Law fax: 202-806-8428 2900 Van Ness Street NW mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Washington, DC 20008 http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar "I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. . . . Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Martin Luther King, Jr., (1963) ___
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Re: RLUIPA Unanimously Upheld in Cutter

2005-05-31 Thread Steven Jamar

As a bit of an aside, perhaps, the "compelling interest" standard of Korematsu, or as Bobby appropriately labeled it, "compelling interest with deference," is the standard we use rather than anything directly from Brown v. Board. Brown v. Board changed the country and indeed the law, but it generally lacks the kind of standard that can be used other than the negative one that separate is not equal. That in itself is huge, but today it is the Korematsu standard that we use across a range of cases, not Brown. And Brown did not use or even cite Korematsu.Which brings me to that interesting problem (one of many) in religious freedom cases -- what roles do equality principles play? Here, Congress is deciding that all religious practices are to be treated the same -- neutrality version of equality -- unless the state shows the compelling state interest to burden the exercise and shows that it is using the least restrictive alternative to do so. So we see a bit of Brown (not distinguishing on the basis of some classification -- not separating and treating unequally) and a lot of Korematsu. And we can't push Brown too far here because we are in fact, in accommodating diverse religious practices in some sense mandating that the institutionalized people be treated unequally (kosher food, sabbatarians, etc.).SteveOn May 31, 2005, at 11:25 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The funny thing about "compelling interest with deference" is that it has been present since at least Korematsu. Bobby -- Prof. Steven D. Jamar vox: 202-806-8017 Howard University School of Law fax: 202-806-8567 2900 Van Ness Street NW mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Washington, DC 20008 http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar/ ". . . Life must be understood backwards. But . . . it must be lived forwards. " Soren Kierkegaard ___
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Re: RLUIPA Unanimously Upheld in Cutter

2005-05-31 Thread Steven Jamar

This very paradox -- and the problems of the limits of logic and language in the law -- was the main impetus for an article I wrote some years back about how RFRA could not be interpreted or applied in a literal way.  Instead, there is an inherent sliding scale of compellingness of the interest the the restrictiveness of the standard that varies with context -- a point made explicitly by Ginsburg in this opinion (p. 12).The rhetorical mismatch is unfortunate and unnecessary as a matter of logic and language -- Congress could have explicitly adopted some other standard, but politics being what they are, this was probably the best that could be done.I find very interesting that the concern some of us have had that the Court would say that Congress simply cannot set standards of interpretation for freedoms like this has been answered as at least a number of us hoped and expected -- there is play in the joints -- while Congress cannot set the minimum of protection (cannot change the Court's interpretation of the 1st amendment, Congress can, so long as it respects those minimum standards, set other standards -- here, there is room to play between the free exercise and establishment constitutional standards.SteveOn May 31, 2005, at 11:47 AM, Marty Lederman wrote: Well, this has been the paradox in Free Exercise Clause law all along, hasn't it?:  That the Court articulated a strict scrutiny test in Sherbert/Yoder, but never came anywhere close to applying such a test in the free-exercise context:  The government virtually always won, by hook or by crook (no substantial burden; compelling interest; carve-outs for prisons/military/government "property," etc.).  (That's one primary explanation for Smith itself -- the Court no doubt wished to call a halt to its own charade.)  Congress adopted the Court's own strict-scrutiny rhetoric, while signaling fairly clearly that courts should be just about as deferential to the state as the SCOTUS itself had been in pre-Smith Free Exercise cases.  The strict scrutiny standard thus has the (intended) deterrence/in terrorem effect at the administrative level -- at the very least deterring states from denying exemptions where the harm is speculative, or where there really would be very little cost involved, such as where the state makes analogous no-religious exemptions.  But if the state has a good reason for denying the exemption, it likely will win in litigation.  That's what has happened at the federal level, with modest results that all parties appear to approve.   The real test of how effective RFRA and RLUIPA will be will come in next Term's UDV case involving the application of that statutory test to the prohibition on use of hoasca tea.  --  Prof. Steven D. Jamar                               vox:  202-806-8017 Howard University School of Law                     fax:  202-806-8567 2900 Van Ness Street NW                   mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Washington, DC  20008   http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar/  "Example is always more efficacious than precept."  Samuel Johnson, 1759  ___
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Re: RLUIPA Unanimously Upheld in Cutter

2005-05-31 Thread Steven Jamar

Time for another AALS panel writing the obit for Lemon?  :)SteveOn May 31, 2005, at 12:12 PM, Stuart BUCK wrote:So has the Lemon test been interred, or not?  Compare footnote 6 of the majority ("We resolve this case on other grounds."), with Thomas's footnote 1 ("The Court properly declines to assess RLUIPA under the discredited test of Lemon . . . .").Best,Stuart Buck --  Prof. Steven D. Jamar                                 vox:  202-806-8017 Howard University School of Law                       fax:  202-806-8428 2900 Van Ness Street NW                        mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Washington, DC  20008      http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar  Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,  Therefore, we are saved by hope.  Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;  Therefore, we are saved by faith.  Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.  Therefore, we are saved by love.  No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;  Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.   Reinhold Neibuhr  ___
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Re: Religion-only accommodation question

2005-04-08 Thread Steven Jamar


On Friday, April 8, 2005, at 11:14  AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Labeling religions majoritarian and minority is both bootstrapping and inaccurate.  There is no majority religion in the United States. 

I guess, then, that Christianity does not constitute a religion.  I assume what was meant was no majority denomination of Christians.

 -- 
Prof. Steven D. Jamar   vox:  202-806-8017
Howard University School of Law fax:  202-806-8567
2900 Van Ness Street NW   mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Washington, DC  20008   http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar/

There is no cosmic law forbidding the triumph of extremism in America.

Thomas McIntyre
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Re: Religion-only accommodation question

2005-04-08 Thread Steven Jamar

>From some perspectives, the only meaningful difference among Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is when they stopped accepting new prophets-- Christianity with Jesus, Islam with Mohammed, Judaism (not stopped yet). All look to Moses, all claim a belief in one god, all started in the same part of the world, all are based on many of the same principles and teachings of the same people, and so on. To a polythiest or nature worshiper or a person from outside of the three western religions they may seem to be the same in the respects most important to that outsider.

But one would not really say that for nearly any demographic purpose the adherents to the three traditions are adhering to the same religion.

So we need to establish our frame of reference with some care, I think, when we speak of what is or what is not a religion, especially for religious freedom and establishment purposes. And when we talk about demographic matters, it depends on what we want to focus on. It is meaningful to say that Christianity is the dominant religion in the United States for some purposes, but not for others.

Steve

Example is always more efficacious than precept.

Samuel Johnson, 1759
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New Yorker Article on Cupertino Schools Controversy

2005-03-17 Thread Steven Jamar

In the March 21, 2005 New Yorker is an article entitled Jesus in the Classroom about Williams' suit in Cupertino -- the falsely balleyhooed School District Bans the Declaration of Independence  case.
There is a related discussion at http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/?050321on_onlineonly01 .

Steve

-- 
Prof. Steven D. Jamar   vox:  202-806-8017
Howard University School of Law fax:  202-806-8567
2900 Van Ness Street NW   mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Washington, DC  20008   http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar/

I do not at all resent criticism, even when, for the sake of emphasis, it for a time parts company with reality.

Winston Churchill, speech to the House of Commons, 1941___
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Re: Harm to Others as a Factor in Accommodation Doctrine

2005-03-14 Thread Steven Jamar

Not exactly, I think.  The law allows sex to be BFOQ.  Of course the BFOQ comes from the religious beliefs which in turn are what is protected by the First Amendment.  Other BFOQs based on sex include things like restroom attendants and roles in operas and plays and movies -- though Elizabethan theatre could, I suppose, be used to call the arts into question.

Steve

On Monday, March 14, 2005, at 07:49  AM, Marty Lederman wrote:

Actually, as to the Catholic Church and women (priests), the title VII exemption does not address the problem at all, as I tried to explain in a post yesterday.  In order to permit the Church to limit the priesthood to men, it's necessary to turn to the First Amendment.

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gender as bfoq

2005-03-14 Thread Steven Jamar

Assume there was no exemption for religious organizations per se under Title VII. But assume there was a BFOQ exemption for any employer, including religious organizations. Can there be any doubt that the free exercise clause would be applied to permit Catholics to ordain only men into the priesthood as a religious BFOQ?

So there must be some content in the FE clause that would be in some cases narrower and in some cases broader than legislative accommodations. And should this not be the case? That there is a core set of rules built around the Constitution directly that cannot be constricted or perhaps even touched by legislative/majoritarian/money-powered interests?

The free exercise clause is to protect the minorities against the majorities, and to protect even the majority religion -- Christianity -- from governmental aggrandizement of power. This latter aspect has been played to great effect of late by Christians asserting victimhood at the hands of the government -- exactly who this evil government foisting victimhood on downtrodden Christian may be a bit hard to determine, given the huge predominance of Christians in all positions of power in our society -- even a greater level of control than the Republicans currently possess. Sometimes one might think we are back in pre-Constantinian Rome.

But the FE clause is there to protect the people against the government and the minorities against the majorities. And legislative action will not always work out for the minorities.

Steve

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Re: Institutional Capacity to Manage Exemptions

2005-03-14 Thread Steven Jamar

I take it that challenges are improper even if well grounded? Not all challenges, of course, prevail (Rosenberger).

On Monday, March 14, 2005, at 04:53 PM, Anthony Picarello wrote:

Then, with the sole exception of federal constitutional amendments, religious groups can expect Establishment Clause challenges to their hard-won legislative accommodations: as blind giveaways if they are too broad (Cutter), as denominational preferences if too tailored (Kiryas Joel). They may also face separation of powers challenges on the (ironic) theory that in providing accommodations, the legislature is usurping the role of judiciary.
In other words, the unifying theme in this position is not deference to legislative acts, but hostility to legislative acts and judicial rules alike if they help religious litigants.

Hostility by whom toward whom? The ACLU and other groups defend religious people's rights as well as the rights of others, including in schools when teachers, principals or school boards utterly ban religious expression

Nothing that is worth anything can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.

Reinhold Neibuhr

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Re: Free Exercise, Free Speech, and harm to others

2005-03-14 Thread Steven Jamar


On Monday, March 14, 2005, at 06:20  PM, Volokh, Eugene wrote:

Rather, my argument is
that the Free Exercise Clause ought not be read as allowing people to do
things that harm others simply because they feel a religious obligation
to do those things.

So you would be against displays of the 10 commandments on free exercise grounds because of the of the psychic harm caused by them to others even though they are displayed as a result of a religious obligation?  And you would ban Mormons and JWs from stopping at my door just like all other peddlars -- if I could show psychic harm?  I guess I don't see where this leads us out of the wilderness any better than the current mish mash of principles, policies, and adjustments.

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Re: Harm to Others as a Factor in Accommodation Doctrine

2005-03-13 Thread Steven Jamar

The term hire refers to any position in which one is employed,
regardless of how one got there or the motivation for doing so.

There is, of course, an exemption for religious positions in religious
organizations in Title VII and it would be required in any event under
the Free Exercise clause.

The all-or-nothing approach will never work in the freedom of religion
area nor in the Supreme Court nor should it. The legislatures should
make exemptions according to balancing interests and policies and
resolving competing principles, as should the courts in interpreting
and applying the constitution. This is absolutely typical.

On Sunday, March 13, 2005, at 12:27 PM, Jean Dudley wrote:
Now, to tie this in with the current discussion, I'm not sure that the
example cited applies because I think priesthood is a volunteer
position. Further, I'd say priesthood in the Catholic Church (or any
other Christian demonination that uses the term) is a calling, and
not a profession. I could be *way* wrong on that, and will bow to
greater knowledge.

Jean Dudley
http://jeansvoice.blogspot.com
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Re: Protestants and non-Protestants

2005-03-08 Thread Steven Jamar


On Tuesday, March 8, 2005, at 08:01  AM, Brad Pardee wrote:

In the end, if the government prohibits what my faith commands or commands what my faith prohibits, does it really make a difference whether the government was openly hostile or simply didn't care?

To you?  Apparently not.
To the law and the broader community -- absolutely.

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I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and nonviolence are as old as the hills. 

Gandhi


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Re: Protestants and non-Protestants

2005-03-07 Thread Steven Jamar

All the active movement I see are from religious groups pushing to establish religion by putting their religion in the public face or demanding that their religion be front and center rather than simply be accommodated.

Of course there are too many instances of teachers and principals on school boards not accommodating in some instances.  But even that is not the same as active hostility.

On Monday, March 7, 2005, at 02:04  PM, Richard Dougherty wrote:

I think it's fairly safe to say that Tocueville would not recognize the role religion plays, or doesn't play, in modern America.  That there is no active governmental movement that is hostile to religion would surprise quite a few people, on the left and right.
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Re: Protestants and non-Protestants

2005-03-05 Thread Steven Jamar

Does it matter that the government is not actually openly hostile to religion?  Or is the relevant inquiry really is seen by many?

Steven Jamar

On Saturday, March 5, 2005, at 09:12  AM, Richard Dougherty wrote:

Well, yes, but not in a political order where the government -- especially the judiciary -- is seen by many as openly hostile to religion; this is a very different America from the one Tocqueville observed.

Richard Dougherty 

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- Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963


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Re: Religious Neutrality and Voluntarism

2005-03-05 Thread Steven Jamar

Even if Marci won't I will.  It is not a widespread pattern of suppression.  And that some schools made mistakes does not show governmental or court hostitility.  Furthermore, it was the courts who let the religion back into the schools when the schools went overboard.

I think most of the problems stemmed from the typical (herein comes group slander) political hack attorneys often hired by school boards not for their constitutional acumen, but for their political connections.  They did not know nor care to learn the law in this admittedly arcane area and so they gave the wrong conservative counsel sort of advice.

There has been in my experience a lot more of the prayer in school advocacy than the exclusion of religious activity.  And a lot more ban the book activity by religious groups than ban the religion activity.  But these are, of course, just impressions, based on what is at best spotty news coverage and where one lives.

And I hope Eugene was tongue in cheek on his conspiracy stuff.

Steve

On Saturday, March 5, 2005, at 07:04  PM, Berg, Thomas C. wrote:

Marci -- I agree that some religious activism in, say, public schools is an attempt to promote a religious orthodoxy and discourage religious diversity, perhaps in response to a perceived loss of cultural power.  Daily school-sponsored prayers were an attempt to do that on behalf of a generic theism or Judeo-Christian theism.  (Official graduation prayers look less like a systematic orthodoxy precisely because are one-time rather than repeated events, but even an orthodoxy at one important event is an orthodoxy.)

But we can't also deny that some religious anger at the public schools stems from a real pattern of suppression of individuals' religious practices in the name of a secular orthodoxy.  For example, the Equal Access Act was a reaction to repeated instances of schools forbidding religious student groups to meet while allowing a host of other groups to meet.  Even after the Act passed, it took another decade of Supreme Court decisions to forbid such exclusion of private religious activity in situations outside the spectific terms of the Act.  These were not just isolated instances, but a widespread pattern of suppression by people who mischaracterized free religious activity in a public setting as a brand of establishment.  Do you debate that point?

Tom Berg, University of St. Thomas School of Law, Minneapolis

image.tiff>
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sat 3/5/2005 3:57 PM
To: religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu
Subject: Re: Religious Neutrality and Voluntarism

I was making a more historical, sociological point.  There is a parallel historical development between the development of the disestablishment doctrine toward a nonendorsement principle and an explosion in diversity.  The two reinforce each other, and the fact of such diversity makes the arguments for a Christian culture or even a Judeo-Christian culture increasingly hollow. 

I'm not sure what the disagreement is on intensity.  By most sociological markers, the U.S. has a more intense set of religious citizens than Europe, to state it mildly.  It is also more intense than the U.S. observed at the time of the framing.  Statistically, more people attend church and more people profess religious belief (though, of course, those beliefs cover a far broader spectrum).  There is quite fertile sociological and anthropological work to be done on the co-presence of these three factors: diversity,  disestablishment or nonendorsement, and a religious culture that is quite enthusiastic and devout.

The public square agitating is not in my view solely or even largely a response to the courts but rather a political play of power.  It is more of a reaction to diversity and the reduction in numbers and proportional power of Christians and in particular Protestants.  Within several years, Protestants will no longer constitute over 50% of the country.  As with all religious movements, a felt loss of power can trigger a lot of political activity.

Marci 

Marci: Do you think it is empirically true that, as you say, The more the
>government is constrained to be neutral with respect to religion over the
>years, the more diversity and intensity of belief this society
>expresses?  I suppose I might agree with the diversity point, but
>intensity I would agree with only in a very limited sense.  Thus, I think
>Tom is right about the secularizing slippery slope, if you will (to use
>a favored phrase of our esteemed moderator).  In addition, much of the
>public square agitating is clearly a response to what are taken to be
>hostile governmental -- let's face it, mostly judicial -- rulings.

ATT915010.txt>
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Re: Good News From Across the Big Pond

2005-03-03 Thread Steven Jamar

Isn't an accommodation denominational discrimination? And don't we encourage and even require that? It is troublesome only in the sense that sometimes applying the requirement is difficult or troublesome. Is that what you meant or did you mean doctrinally troublesome?

Steve Jamar
On Thursday, March 3, 2005, at 02:16 PM, Rick Duncan wrote:

One problem with the uniform policy is that it does accommodate some religious students, but not others. Here is the New York Times report: In contrast to French state schools, where students are prohibited from wearing head scarves, Denbigh allows girls a choice: wearing standard pants or skirts, or dressing in a shalwar kameez, a traditional Muslim outfit consisting of pants covered by a tunic. Head scarves are allowed if they meet certain criteria.
But they don't allow the jilwab, apparently because it is regarded as being associated with Muslim extremism. This looks like denominational discrimination to me. Moderate Muslims are allowed to wear the shalwar kameez, but extremist Muslims are not allowed to wear the jilwab.
I know almost nothing about European law (except that which has crept into U.S. Supreme Court opinions), but it seems to me that under any kind of religious liberty/religious equality protection denominational discrimination such as this should be troublesome. No?
Rick Duncan

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Re: Ten Commandments

2005-03-02 Thread Steven Jamar

Just to make clear where I stand, again. I think the display of the 10 commandments is a violation of the establishment clause. Period.

I was responding to the question about predicting what the Court might do by in part sketching a way in which the Court might do it and justify itself in doing so. Does any constitutional lawyer on this list doubt that the Court is fully capable of selective use of history and of cobbling together various tenuous and at times just wrong threads of tradition and history to justify decisions in close (to some of them) cases? Though accommodation lives almost exclusively in free exercise, does anyone doubt the Court's capacity to use such a concept to justify finding no establishment violation here?

I also realize that people post responses for many reasons, including to respond to arguments even made in the hypothetical sense so that others, including especially lurkers who may be relative novices to the field, do not get the impression that there is only one side. So let me emphasize that the hypothetical collection of disparate strands of reasons are far from indisputable propositions.

BTW, Prof. Duncan, the Constitution was actually written with international law and practice understood and taken into account. Furthermore, the court in the juvenile death penalty case, as you well know, relied on international and foreign law only as supplemental support for its decision. Though Scalia may not like it, the US is in fact part of the world and has consented to most of the international human rights law developments in the past 50 years, and at one time was even a leader in that endeavor.

It is by education I learn to do by choice, what other men do by the constraint of fear.

Aristotle
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Re: Ten Commandments

2005-03-02 Thread Steven Jamar

On Wednesday, March 2, 2005, at 08:39 AM, Paul Finkelman wrote:

Even if that is true, to only put the Ten C. is historically inaccurate and to claim it is historical is pretextual.

Of course it is. But my point was, again, that the Court could well do exactly that no matter how much you may dislike it or think it improper to do so.

Put up a monument with great law givers from history and Moses gets in there (not the Ten C. however); but he would be one of many. If you put up the 10 C alone then you have a pretty in your face endorsement.

I agree. But I'm not the one deciding the case.

And, whose 10 C do you put up? Jewish, Catholic, Lutheran, General Protestant -- there are at least those 4 out there that are different; and whose translation. THe Portestant 2nd commandment prohibits graven images. THe Catholic first commandment (notice already we have to make theological choices here) prohibits idols. Jews prohibit murder as do some Protestants; Catholics and the King James incorrectly translate it as kill but this is not a battle of linguists, it is a serious religious and theological set of issues that are not nearly as simple as the arguments made by Judge Roy Moore in Alabama or the Texas Legislature (with their Luthern Ten C. monument).

This is, I think, well beside the point. It is a matter of near meaninglessness to most people; it is a matter unknown to most people; it is a matter that is relatively irrelevant for the mostly symbolic justification for including any version; and if we are to believe my colleague Prof. Newsom, the chance of a non-Protestant version being put up is a bit remote given the largely Protestant make-up of the country.

The most precious things one gets in life are not those one gets for money.

Albert Einstein
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Re: Ten Commandments

2005-03-02 Thread Steven Jamar

The bill of rights refers in common and professional parlance to the first 10 amendments, not to amendments 1-12. Mr. Henderson, what were the other two articles? I looked at the webpage and still see only the first 10 amendments. I don't know whether the I-X is the 10 commandments or the bill of rights, but a notation such as I-X could be either, despite the vituperative language of Mr. Henderson.

Steve

On Wednesday, March 2, 2005, at 12:37 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

In a message dated 3/2/2005 8:06:25 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

The I-X on the front panel is the Bill of Rights, not the Ten Commandments.

This is patent nonsense, and it was supercilliously silly of Justice Stevens to make the assertion today.
Why is it nonsense?
You, and he, say that it represents the Bill of Rights. I have a copy of the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is on display in the National Archives, if you do not have one of your own to review. Or you may examine one at http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_experience/charters/bill_of_rights_zoom_1.html.
Please look at the Bill of Rights. It consists of twelve numbered articles, not ten.
You may mean to suggest that the numbered plaque over the Chief Justice's chair represents the first Ten Amendments, but you didn't. You said it was the Bill of Rights. The facts say that is stuff and nonsense.
Moreover, the docents that lead tours of the United States Supreme Court say that the plaque of the Chief Justice's head is not the Ten Commandments, but is the artist's attempt to depict moral codes common to all early societies. That interpretation, in turn, is drawn from a summary of the history of the Surpeme Court building produced by the Federal Writers' Project.
Jim Henderson
Senior Counsel
ACLJ
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Re: Ten Commandments

2005-03-02 Thread Steven Jamar

Those articles are not part of the bill of rights.

On Wednesday, March 2, 2005, at 02:36 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

In a message dated 3/2/2005 12:55:57 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

Mr. Henderson, what were
the other two articles?

Article the First sets the number of representatives to at one for every thirty thousand until there is attained a total of 100 representatives, etc., etc.
Article the Second (which has, some two hundred years belatedly, become the Twenty Seventh Amendment upon its ratification by a sufficient number of States) (but see any humorous argument to the contrary the Professor Paulsen might offer) prevented present Congresses from increasing their compensation by interposing a subsequent House of Representatives election.
These appear at the top of the Bill of Rights. Article the Second appears at the bottom of the Amendments to the Constitution, being the last word of the people and the States on how the Constitution should be read.
I can't explain why you cannot see them. They appear plainly in the image files. The transcription offered by the Library of Congress, however, only reports the preamble and the texts of articles three through twelve (our first ten amendments).
Jim Look Closer, and Open your Mind to the Possibilities Henderson
Senior Counsel
ACLJ
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Re: Ten Commandments: My Prediction

2005-03-02 Thread Steven Jamar

US law on establishment is decidedly different from that of most of the world. Indeed, most states do not have a prohibition on establishment, just a guarantee of free exercise. I do not think that the US needs to have establishment law as it does to preserve religious freedom, but as it has developed, we have built this wall and it should be maintained. We should also keep in mind the US history with respect to religion, its huge variety of religious traditions, and the fact that it is really just one sect, protestants, that push to establish state sponsorship or endorsement of religion.

I personally do not think that many bad consequences would happen if we were to undo our establishment jurisprudence to allow a lot more state sponsorship, but I prefer keeping them separate as we do.

Steve

On Wednesday, March 2, 2005, at 02:48 PM, A.E. Brownstein wrote:

And consistent with having a decent respect to the opinions of mankind, it would be appropriate for an American constitutional court to explain why American constitutional law reaches a different conclusion with regard to state establishments of religion than do other Western democracies, just as we reach different conclusions about the regulation of hate speech and other liberty and equality issues. Certainly, it is not uncommon for the constitutional courts of other countries to explain why they are unpersuaded by American constitutional doctrine in many cases.

Alan Brownstein
UC Davis

The modern trouble is in a low capacity to believe in precepts which restrict and restrain private interests and desires.

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Re: Ten Commandments

2005-03-02 Thread Steven Jamar

You think that at any time in the 20th century the term Bill of Rights referred to 12 articles instead of the first 10 ratified amendments?  Let me see the history to prove that assertion.  Your assertion on this list is the first time I have ever heard the US Bill of Rights as other than the first 10 Amendments.  Also, the stone in the frieze is not in the traditional form -- if the artist wanted to call to mind the 10 commandments, why  not the standard tablet iconography.

Jim, you are just wrong on this one in terms of what the Bill of Rights means.  You may be right as to the  I-X on the frieze represents the 10 Commandments -- I doubt it in light of what I have seen so far, but it might.  

Steve
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Re: Ten Commandments: My Prediction

2005-03-02 Thread Steven Jamar

Ok, but I've not seen Catholics or Jews or Muslims pushing for:
prayers starting school
prayers at football games
using religious arguments as superior to positive law
young-earther anti-evolution creationism
creches

I do not recall seeing any Catholics or Jews pushing this as part of their agendas, either.

No doubt some, perhaps many, even most Catholics and perhaps many, perhaps most Jews support it -- but they are not the ones pushing it. I stand by my comment as made.

On Wednesday, March 2, 2005, at 06:06 PM, Berg, Thomas C. wrote:

I am not a supporter of 10 Commandments displays, and the following point, in my view, does not fundamentally change the proper result in these cases. But I don't agree with Steve Jamar's claim that it is really just one sect, protestants, that push to establish state sponsorship or endorsement of religion (by which I assume he includes 10 Commandments displays).

I do not at all resent criticism, even when, for the sake of emphasis, it for a time parts company with reality.

Winston Churchill, speech to the House of Commons, 1941
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Re: Ten Commandments

2005-03-01 Thread Steven Jamar

I think the Court could dividedly say that the 10 Commandments are part of our juridical heritage and we use history and tradition to justify some things and we have no coercion here and some accommodation could creep in, and state sponsorship is attenuated; plus Moses is on the mural in the Supreme Court, right? So I could see a Rosenberger kind of decision maybe with a Grund/Grutter splitting of hairs between the two cases.

Notwithstanding the foregoing way in which a decision could be cobbled together, I predict that the court will rule the displays unconstitutional as establishment violations. Unlike Rosenberger, it is hard to find keeping them in place as some sort of support of free speech and it is hard to find that from some perspective the religious group would be treated differently and worse than some secular group wanting to post something like, say, the Bill of Rights.

FWIW, I think these should be easy, bright-line cases against. There are plenty of other fora for this sort of witnessing.

Steve

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

Mark Twain
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Re: Should Liberal Law Professors Support Judge McConnell?

2005-02-23 Thread Steven Jamar

Hmmm. Intellectual integrity? Please explain how anything done as described in your post constitutes intellectual integrity. If I have a standard of the characteristics I think a judge should have, is it not intellectual integrity to judge all candidates by those standards, whatever they may be?

If a candidate were to believe that torture and abuse of prisoners is OK or that the President under any conceivable circumstances would have the power or right to order or authorize such conduct, then I would oppose that person no matter how much he or she met other personal or procedural or tempermental criteria.

My point is that at some point the substantive positions of people matter, especially for the Supreme Court.

Nearly all of Bush's nominations have sailed through without difficulty and for the few I am personally familiar with, I supported them, despite deep and abiding political disagreements and views on the role of the federal government and judiciary in supporting individual rights, especially civil rights of the minorities.

I know of no position of Judge McConnell that would be such that I would on a substantive level actively oppose him -- as opposed to, for example, actively opposing someone who has formally argued the President has the power and legal right to torture people. The fact that I respect Judge McConnell and think he is qualified for the post does not mean I need to step out in front and support him. If I were in the Senate and had a vote, I know of nothing that would require me to vote against him. But I also would not be the one carrying water for him.

Beware of the Bushian for me or against me on this issue. I do not think that either I or anyone else with similar views would be lacking in intellectual integrity just because I (or we) would not carry water for him. I think the slam implicit in the quote below is thoroughly unwarranted.

Steve Jamar

On Wednesday, February 23, 2005, at 04:17 PM, Stuart BUCK wrote:

But to be capable of rising above partisan litmus tests and personal disagreement displays a remarkable degree of intellectual integrity.

Best,
Stuart Buck

Face violence if necessary, but refuse to return violence. If we respect those who oppose us, they may achieve a new understanding of the human relations involved.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Re: Should Liberal Law Professors Support Judge McConnell?

2005-02-23 Thread Steven Jamar

Thanks for the clarification, but I still have a problem with your definition of integrity.

On Wednesday, February 23, 2005, at 05:29 PM, Stuart BUCK wrote:

Let me put it this way, since my first attempt was apparently unclear:

Liberals might be warranted in opposing McConnell, just as McConnell might have been warranted in opposing Kagan and other Clinton nominees. Anyone would prefer that judicial nominees agree with his or her own positions on a greater number of issues. That being the case, it is entirely to be expected that people won't go out of their way to support their ideological opponents. And the fact that people act this way does not at all imply a *lack* of intellectual integrity.

That said, when individuals such as McConnell, or Kagan, or any number of other professors are able to set aside individual differences and recognize the intellectual and moral worth of someone on the other side, they are displaying a degree of integrity that goes far and beyond the normal call of duty. To praise such out-of-the-ordinary integrity and evenhandedness is by no means to denigrate the rest of us who exhibit the more normal impulse to oppose (or to fail to support) the other side.

Best,
Stuart Buck

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

- Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963

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Re: Should Liberal Law Professors Support Judge McConnell?

2005-02-23 Thread Steven Jamar

Integrity may be an acceptable word so long as it is not excluding by
using it the people noted in your second sentence below. That was the
substance of my objection -- that acting to support someone who one
disagrees with on many things is not the only act of integrity in such
situations, though it is indeed an act of integrity in some instances.

Steve
On Wednesday, February 23, 2005, at 06:09 PM, Stuart BUCK wrote:
Perhaps you're right; perhaps integrity isn't the right word. In
some instances, a person might be acting out of integrity precisely
by opposing nominees who are wrong on issues of importance.

Still, what would the right word be in this situation? Compared to all
the instances of perfectly predictable partisanship in these matters,
doesn't it seem especially noteworthy when someone says, I may
disagree with this nominee on a number of issues, but I have such
great respect for his/her capabilities that I support the nomination?

What word for it would you prefer?
Best,
Stuart Buck
--
Prof. Steven D. Jamar vox: 202-806-8017
Howard University School of Law fax: 202-806-8428
2900 Van Ness Street NW mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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When I grow up, I too will go to faraway places, and when I grow old,
I too will live by the sea.
That is all very well, little Alice, said her grandfather, but there
is a third thing you must do.
What is that?
You must do something to make the world more beautiful.

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Re: Should Liberal Law Professors Support Judge McConnell?

2005-02-22 Thread Steven Jamar

Isn't the question one of should liberal law professors not oppose him?  There is a difference between supporting and simply choosing not to actively oppose.  I might prefer someone else, but choose not to oppose a particular candidate, saving my few arrows for a more important target.  Replacing Breyer with McConnell would be much more of concern to me than replacing Rehnquist.

On Tuesday, February 22, 2005, at 01:37 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  My question is simply why should liberal law professors support his nomination?
 
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Prof. Steven D. Jamar vox:  202-806-8017
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A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used. 

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in Towne v. Eisner, 245 U.S. 418, 425 (1918)


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Re: 21st Century Zorach

2005-02-20 Thread Steven Jamar

Of course schools teach religious values all the time -- just not ones identified by name with a particular religion.  Truth, fairness, the everything-I-need-to-know-I-learned-in-kindergarten values.

Steve

On Friday, February 18, 2005, at 02:06  PM, Scarberry, Mark wrote:

A possible argument for having release time only for religious programs is
that parents who wish to have religious values taught to their children are
just about the only ones who cannot seek to have the public schools
inculcate their chosen values. Those who wish to have environmental values,
healthy lifestyle values, multicultural values, or patriotic values can seek
to have their values taught by the school.

The Establishment Clause prohibits schools from inculcating religious values
not because those values are unimportant or disfavored or damaging, but
because such inculcation is to be left to parents and private organizations,
who are guaranteed the right freely to exercise religion. Where the school
steps out of the way to allow parents to have such inculcation done by
private groups, both the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses are
honored.

Mark S. Scarberry
Pepperdine University School of Law


-Original Message-
From: Lupu [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2005 10:50 AM
To: Law  Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: RE: 21st Century Zorach

Released time has several problems in addition to trapping the left-
behind students in a dead hour (Rick, high schoolers may have 
study halls, but 2nd graders usually don't, so this is a sham 
argument):

1.  Why is released time only for religious studies?  Why shouldn't it 
be for any activity of educational or civic value (Scouts, chess, or 
music lessons away from school, etc.)?  I have never heard a good 
argument for religion-only released time.

2.  Why should the school be releasing time from its curriculum in 
the first place?  If school is longer than need be, shorten it.  If 
parents want religious education for their children, why not send 
them for it before or after school?

3.  In communities in which the vast majority of children go to Bible 
study during release time, there is pressure on other children to 
conform and ask parental permission to go too.  (Someone wrote an 
op-ed in the Washington Post in the past week or so, describing this 
exact situation as part of her childhood.) Conformity pressures are 
always present among children, of course, but here (as in Engel), 
the school is creating the context in which conformity pressures are 
highlighted.  Being left behind in class is a more visible 
nonconformity than going off on one's own after school.  (In my 
grade school days, the only children who left my public school for 
release time were Catholic; there weren't many, and the program 
spotlighted them as in a religious minority in the public school and 
as too poor to attend Catholic school as most of their fellow 
Catholics did.) 

Chip Lupu

On 18 Feb 2005 at 10:13, Rick Duncan wrote:

Forwarded by:   	[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Forwarded to:   	[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date forwarded: 	Fri, 18 Feb 2005 13:00:39 EST/EDT
Date sent:  	Fri, 18 Feb 2005 10:13:30 -0800 (PST)
From:   	Rick Duncan 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: 	Law  Religion issues for Law Academics 
religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu>
Subject:	RE: 21st Century Zorach
Send reply to:  	Law  Religion issues for Law Academics 
religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu>
mailto:religionlaw-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
mailto:religionlaw-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

But isn't a study hall something constructive? Public
schools have study halls all the time, and they count
toward the mandatory school attendance requirement.
No?

I thought the point that someone, maybe Doug, made was
that parents are coerced into granting their consent
for released time unless the school provides some
meaningful activity for those who remain on campus. I
doubt if very many parents would choose an off-campus
religious program they oppose over a supervised study
hall for children who remain on campus. 

Now, if children not participating in the release time
program were required to clean the school's toilets or
wash and wax its floors, we would have some coercion
to talk about. But a study hall seems to me both a
legitimate and a meaningful alternative to
participation in the released time program. Study is
good. Children need to do more of it.

And, if I were putting the program together, I would
also allow any parent who objected to the study hall
to request that his or her child be released into his
or her custody during the released time period. This
would ensure that no one need remain on campus during
the released time period. Spending time with parents
is good. Children need to do more of it.

Rick Duncan



--- Marc Stern [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Marty's point as I understand it is not that
students choosing to
participate in released time programs are coerced to
believe. It is that
students who do not

Re: 21st Century Zorach

2005-02-20 Thread Steven Jamar

What happened to Sunday School? Parents don't bring their kids there
so they churches want the captive audience. When I was a kid we had
Wednesday School -- Wed. morning release time -- with about double
the attendance as at Sunday School -- even worse ratio during hunting
season, of course. I remember vividly the first year our church did
not have Wednesday school -- and I was stuck at school with a few
other misfit heathens and wondered why I was being singled out and
punished. This was second grade, I think. Eventually the
Prestbyterian church got its act together and belated started its
standard Wednesday school late that year. A year or two later the
entire release program was dropped due to establishment concerns and
busing costs -- which had been borne by the school district and which
was looking for ways to save money, even back then in the late 50s,
early 60s.

Steve
--
Prof. Steven D. Jamar vox: 202-806-8017
Howard University School of Law fax: 202-806-8428
2900 Van Ness Street NW mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Washington, DC 20008 http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar
When I grow up, I too will go to faraway places, and when I grow old,
I too will live by the sea.
That is all very well, little Alice, said her grandfather, but there
is a third thing you must do.
What is that?
You must do something to make the world more beautiful.

Re: 21st Century Zorach

2005-02-20 Thread Steven Jamar

If the state sponsored chess or other meaningful activity during the release time, then there would be parents complaining about discrimination because their students who were released for religious training are missing out on some instruction. If the state continued classroom instruction, then the reading groups or math groups would have some who have had an extra 90 minutes of instruction. (Are any of these programs really only one hour? 15 minutes each way for travel, one hour for instruction, makes at least 90 minutes.)
I remember a lot of head on the desk and keep quiet sort of instruction.
Some teachers resented those of us who remained behind because they could not take the Wednesday morning break. So we were sometimes herded together to one room and I seem to recall doing dodgeball once during this time.

So ending class early one day per week for students to go to some non-school sponsored activity, as suggested by Chip, would not be a problem -- but some parents would still complain about being forced to choose between religious education and soccer practice, I'll warrant.

Steve

Example is always more efficacious than precept.

Samuel Johnson, 1759
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Re: A Model Draft of a Time Release Program

2005-02-20 Thread Steven Jamar

The problem, Rick, is that parents are being forced to choose between things they want the kids to do -- whereas religion only release programs assume people are in one and only one congregation -- a mostly true assumption. Many kids do cub scouts and 4-H and soccer, etc.

On Saturday, February 19, 2005, at 08:43 AM, Rick Duncan wrote:

How about this as a first draft of a time release
program that would minimize reasonable concerns:

1. The Program would designate one-hour per week, say
Tuesdays from 11-Noon, when parents could request
their children be released from school to attend any
Program of the parent's choosing conducted by any
non-profit organization, whether secular or religious.
Boy Scouts, 4-H, Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, Christian
programs, Jewish Programs, Secular Humanist Programs,
Wicca Programs, Atheist Programs, all faiths,
ideologies and perspectives would qualify.

2. The school would stay open, of course, for children
whose parents do not choose a release activity. During
this period the school would conduct a well-supervised
study hall in which students would be instructed to do
their homework or study their lessons. Students
without homework or lessons to study would be
instructed to read a book of their choice (I think the
public schools call this a free reading period and
it is common for schools to do this during class time
in order to encourage students to read books of the
students' own choosing). This period would also be a
good one to use for optional school assembly
programs in which speakers are invited to address
those who choose to attend.

3. If any parent so requests, his or her child would
be released into his or her custody for the release
period. No child would be required to remain on campus
against the wishes of his or her parent.

I really don't see how anyone can object to this kind
of program. It is clearly constitutional and seems to
be more than a reasonable attempt to balance the needs
of different families in a pluralistic society.

Indeed, after Good News, there does not even seem to
be any problem with inviting these groups to come on
campus to conduct their programs. The release period
could be designated an extracurricular forum for
community youth groups and parents could choose
which, if any, program for their children to attend.
No need to force children out into the cold and snow
when there is plenty of room in the school building. No?

=
Rick Duncan
Welpton Professor of Law
University of Nebraska College of Law
Lincoln, NE 68583-0902
Red State Lawblog: www.redstatelaw.blogspot.com

When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either Galahad or Mordred: middle things are gone. C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle

I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered. --The Prisoner

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Years ago my mother used to say to me... 'In this world Elwood' ... She always used to call me Elwood... 'In this world Elwood, you must be Oh So Smart, or Oh So Pleasant.' Well for years I was smart -- I recommend pleasant. You may quote me. --Elwood P. Dowd

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Re: A Model Draft of a Time Release Program

2005-02-20 Thread Steven Jamar

No. Release time is not about shortening the school day to do something worthwhile. It is about religion, pure and simple. And I, and many of my friends, hated wednesday school -- putting on coats and boots and boarding busses to go to church to hear volunteer parents try to explain stuff to us unwilling prisoners -- and then doing it all again.

Of course we were 6-10 years old at the time and just pretty much did as told with unsophisticated objections based on not wanting to.

Steve

On Sunday, February 20, 2005, at 01:32 PM, Susanna Peters wrote:

In so many ways this is just a debate about school. As parents we are frustrated that the school day is so long and our kids aren't getting anything out of all that time. We would like for them to be doing something productive. For example, I would love to see my school teach foreign languages, but they dont have money so they dont. Instead the kids sit there all day doing very little, mine are exhausted by the fact that they are essentially sitting still all day and being quiet and good (8:20 -3:30!). We all suppose it is practice for some greater good.So this proposal simply makes them sit there just as long doing nothing while the kids with the money for the private spanish tutor or who belong to churches but don't want to go after school and have to skip dance class, go off and learn something interesting and worthwhile.
--
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Howard University School of Law fax: 202-806-8428
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Re: God in the Constitution

2005-02-01 Thread Steven Jamar

Bobby,

Thanks for the helpful summing up.

The Egyptian Constitution originally noted the Shariah (Islamic law) as a source of law. It was more recently amended (15 or so years ago) to make the Shariah the source of law.

I think one plausible reason god is not mentioned is the very varied conceptions of god and the concomitant desire not to create another grounds for disagreement and necessary and uncomfortable compromise. Of course the only evidence for this is the nature of the document itself being so much based on compromise and power with purpose put only in the preamble. I think the purposes were decidedly secular (more perfect union, security, and general welfare), howsoever much the implementation in certain aspects may be religion-inspired in individual cases and even collectively.

I suspect some may have been leery of putting god's stamp of approval on something that legalized and legitimated racial slavery.

Steve

I care not what subject is taught if only it be taught well.

Thomas H. Huxley
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Re: The Amish

2005-01-02 Thread Steven Jamar

I doubt Yoder comes out the same today -- even with this Court. The advent of home schooling to state-set standards changes things substantially, I think. We now generally accept that the state may set certain standards for education up to a certain age -- though we do allow drop-outs -- and that a state may require attendance up to a certain age -- you can't drop out until then. This was true in the time of Yoder, as well, but we have 30 years more experience and thought now, and some demystification of the myth of the cute quaint Amish as utterly positive and benign, of which the article cited by Sandy is just another example.
Accommodation is what is required; not exemption from participation in society in a number of compulsory ways, including taxes and becoming educated.

Steve

If we are to receive full service from government, the universities must give us trained [people]. That means a constant reorientation of university instruction and research not for the mere purpose of increasing technical proficiency but for the purpose of keeping abreast with social and economic change. . . . Government is no better than its [people].

William O. Douglas
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Re: proselytization

2004-12-21 Thread Steven Jamar

If it is legal to explain and teach about religions and religion, but it is illegal to proselytize, then it seems to be not merely a word-choice distinction, but a conclusion with legal consequences. If the argument is that the particular activity constitutes illegal proselytization, then that seems to be the correct word and the right characterization.

However, if judges respond as Mr. Henderson does, then counsel, keeping in mind their audience, would do well to avoid the word and use some less satisfactory alternative. But absent appearing before Judge (I-can't-stand-that-word) Henderson or one if his ilk, I don't see how characterizing something as improper and illegal persuasion or inducement or advocacy is any better that the accurate term proselytize.

Or does Mr. Henderson reject the distinction as a legal matter as well as the terminology?

Steve

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

Mark Twain
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Re: proselytization

2004-12-18 Thread Steven Jamar

Prof. Lipkin was proselytized by his neighbor. They both handled it with tolerance and maturity. How does that change the fact of proselytization? How does what the neighbor did not constitute an inducement to change religions -- the definition of proselytize? This was no mere it came up in conversation or informal, impromptu exchange of views over the backyard fence when doing lawn chores. That the neighbor lacked evangelical fervor (militant relentless advocacy) does not change the proselytization -- the inducement to change beliefs to something else.

Steve

On Saturday, December 18, 2004, at 08:25 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

In a message dated 12/17/2004 3:22:37 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

I had a neighbor, who characterized himself as a born again Christian. Knowing that I am Jewish, he one day presented me with literature from Jews for Jesus. He explained to me his reasons for doing so, and I told him that I've thought about religion a great deal, even taught the philosophy of religion, and I have well-decided beliefs on the matter and essentially concluded thanks but no thanks. Our good neighbor relationship was none the worse--indeed, it probably became richer--as a result of this episode. Had he pursued his religious inclinations to convert me, or had I persisted in challenging his convictions, our relationship might not have withstood the test of time.

This narrative is evidence aplenty that the discussion can move forward in meaningful ways without the proselytizing crutch to aid it. Notice that you say he presented you the material and he explained his reasons for doing so.

It's a small matter to make these mortals so happy.

Jim Henderson
Senior Counsel
ACLJ

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Re: Evolution vs Creation Reaches the SATS

2004-12-18 Thread Steven Jamar

The report is an obvious, albeit well done, satire. The SAT does not test knowledge of science even in the section formerly known as verbal and soon to be known as critical reading. It gives students a passage to read and asks questions designed to test their reading comprehension. It does NOT presume knowledge of what is contained in the passage before one reads it, though such familiarity helps.

The College Board does give various versions of the tests, but does not modify them on a school-district or state by state basis. The whole point is to give what is essentially the same test to everyone across the country in an attempt to test proficiency at certain skills deemed needed for success at college-level work. Of course there is a level of knowledge involved, but not of the sort satirized in the Swift Report: News and Views Before You Need Them.

Steve

On Saturday, December 18, 2004, at 01:05 PM, Ed Brayton wrote:

The site this appears on is a well known parody site, so I would assume it is exactly that.

Ed Brayton
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Does anyone on the list know if this is indeed the direction the testing
is taking. That is, if the report is accurate. The example questions
seem to ask for more than reading comprehension to me.

Susanna Peters

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Matthew 6:19-21
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Re: Steven Williams Case - more factual information

2004-12-17 Thread Steven Jamar

On Friday, December 17, 2004, at 12:18 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

The question of how much it is being used/abused I reflected on anecdotally from my experience litigating these cases for nearly twenty years. A very quick electronic search on Lexis, of Supreme Court briefs, reveals some 300 plus briefs in which the term is employed, and when the precise term proselytizing is searched, the number is 151, with the bulk of its uses being -- no surprise -- in cases involving religion in the schools. And no further surprise, it is principally used by certain members of the usual gang of suspects on one side.

But even if it used by only one side, that does not mean it is being misused or used pejoratively. Some teachers sometimes proselytize. Sometimes what one side would characterize as proselytization the other side would as well. Sometimes the other side would not.

Having been told that both evangelism and proselytization are Christian obligations (I understand the first easily enough, but have some trouble with the second as a matter of interpretting the gospels), I just don't see it as pejorative in general.

I think an objective study of the question will bear it out, and may pursue it myself when time allows.
[snip]

Proselytizing is a provocative term unless used in a self-deprecating fashion and is likely to do less good than ready substitutes for it.

such as?

Matthew 6:19-21
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Re: Are the Ten Commandments the foundation of the Anglo-Amer ican legal system?

2004-12-17 Thread Steven Jamar

Just as an aside, the Mosaic laws are much more than 10 and they track suspicously with the so-called 42 Negative Confessions of Egypt of the time Moses is supposed to have left Egypt with the Jews.

Of course it might just be that a number of the ideas about living a good, moral life have little to do with god and lots to do with what people throughout the ages and in most cultures have decided is the right way to live.

And so back to Durkheimian concept of society as god.

In any event, it seems that we ought to go back to Egypt and pagan Greece for a bunch of these ideas. Not to mention that the whole idea of a confederacy or union of states comes from Native Americans in upstate New York. Let us not forget that the Constitution is quite a bit more than the first amendment freedom of religion.

Steve

On Friday, December 17, 2004, at 07:00 PM, Scarberry, Mark wrote:

Kurt knows a lot more about this than I do (and allow me to put in a plug
for his two articles on the 9th amendment that are about to come out), but
my comment was not limited to law relating to religious freedom. The claim
that the Decalogue influenced American law is not limited to that part of
the law that deals with religion. To the extent that the Decalogue
influenced British law generally, it is important to note the general
continuity of law between the pre- and post-revolutionary period.

Mark S. Scarberry
Pepperdine University School of Law

- Mary Chase, Harvey, 1950

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Re: Steven Williams Case - more factual information

2004-12-16 Thread Steven Jamar

On Thursday, December 16, 2004, at 12:22 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
(As an aside, I always wonder that those with whom we agree never proselyze, they only offer irrefutable arguments, while those whose views are disagreeable are readily described as proselytizing. There is, it seems, a knee-jerking content to the term that makes it valuable in guiding discussions away from substance.)

please limit this to yourself, it if is indeed true for you. It is not true in my experience, except for some close minded zealots -- with whom I haven't much direct contact these days. The word is used loosely often, this I grant, but there is a difference between teaching about and proselytization howsoever easily one can drift from one to the other if unwary or if not trying to avoid doing so.

There is no cosmic law forbidding the triumph of extremism in America.

Thomas McIntyre
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Re: Wait, there's more: Leading ID think tank calls Dover evolution policy misguided, calls for it to be withdrawn

2004-12-15 Thread Steven Jamar

Sandy, I agree that there is value in multiplicity in the three examples you mention, including critiques of evolution.  But there is a difference between evolution (an established fact) and disagreements about the mechanism by which it works.  Requiring teaching that evolution is false is not an acceptable alternative.  But allowing or even requiring critiques makes a great deal of sense.  Even if it is creationism light.

Knowledge is not all a matter of social power.  But what constitutes truth at any given time certainly is affected by social power.

Steve

On Tuesday, December 14, 2004, at 05:16 PM, Sanford Levinson wrote:

I just listened to an NPR segment quoting one of the supporters of ID saying that it is important that students be presented with alternatives to Darwinism.  That is, this is an appeal to the importance of a multiplicity of points of view.  Is there a principled way of deciding when that is a desiderata?  Consider, e.g., the failure of American public schools to present in any serious way the propositions that a) we have quite a dysfunctional Constitution (a proposition that I personally believe) and b) there are legitimate reasons for various and sundry persons around the globe to hate us (a proposition that I also believe, but not for all of the various and sundry persons who in fact hate us, obviously).  I take it that the persons who believe in multiplicity of views with regard to ID are unlikely to accept its importance with regard to my examples.  But, conversely, I presume that persons who agree with my examples are likely to be hostile to presenting ID as even a possibility.  Is Foucault right, that what counts as knowledge (or disputable theory) is all a matter of social power?  (This is not a rhetorical question.)
 

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It is by education I learn to do by choice, what other men do by the constraint of fear.

Aristotle
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Re: Wait, there's more: Leading ID think tank calls Dover evolution policy misguided, calls for it to be withdrawn

2004-12-15 Thread Steven Jamar

That things tend toward disorder does not mean that order cannot and does not arise. Order arises in all physical systems without violating the laws of thermodynamics. The laws relating to chemistry and biology also matter as do such laws of physics like quantum dynamics.
The specious entropy argument has been thoroughly debunked in published material.
Evolution does not really assume anything about order or about directionality of change, except insofar as under the principles of natural selection the more fit will survive.
Steve

On Wednesday, December 15, 2004, at 11:10 AM, Alan Leigh Armstrong wrote:

Evolution appears to violate the law of entropy. That is things tend to disorder. (examples: a deck of cards, any teenagers bedroom.) Evolution assumes that things become more ordered.

Physicists in industry are not going to spend the time on it because it will not help produce a product.
Physicists in colleges are not looking at it because there is no grant money in it. Also would a published article on the subject help them get tenure?

Alan
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Re: Steven Williams Case - more factual information

2004-12-13 Thread Steven Jamar

I've said it before; I'll say it again:  Don't cloud the issue with facts!
:)

NPR ran a story yesterday on the Williams case.  The link is here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4224577.  According to the story, the principal had received many complaints about Williams over the past year or more, and the complaints had come from many different parents. Parents interviewed in the story said that Williams brought up God, Jesus, and Christian principles in math, science, and other subjects in addition to U.S. history, and that he sometimes did so many times per day.

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I do not at all resent criticism, even when, for the sake of emphasis, it for a time parts company with reality.

Winston Churchill, speech to the House of Commons, 1941
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Re: Steven Williams Case - more factual information

2004-12-11 Thread Steven Jamar

I like Prof. Levinson's hypo. Here's another one:
Under Islam, Jesus is believed to have been born of the Virgin Mary and
is considered a holy prophet. Read the Koran and other Islamic
religion sources and contrast this view to the Christian view of Jesus
as Messiah.

On Friday, December 10, 2004, at 02:16 PM, Sanford Levinson wrote:
Imagine the following assignment by a Jewish teacher to his class in
World History two weeks before Easter (when, it so happens, the
syllabus
for the course is treating the Holocaust):

The account of Jesus's trial and subsequent punishment as set out in
the
Christian Gospels is viewed by many historians and theologians as a
central source of anti-Semitism and the cause of persecution and,
indeed, massacre, of Jews throughout the ages. Please read the various
accounts of Jesus's trial in the four Gospels and indicate why someone
might view them as anti-Semitic. (Is there significant variation among
the Gospels in this regard?)

Would anyone on this list who supports Mr. Williams have any problems
with this assignment?

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Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate
context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite a virtuous from the standpoint of our friend
or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

Reinhold Neibuhr
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Re: Steven Williams Case - more factual information

2004-12-10 Thread Steven Jamar

It is not an easy line to draw, but schools can teach about religion, about religious beliefs, about the roles of religion in history, and so on.  But schools cannot teach the religion as truth.  The school can teach that Muslims belief there is but one god and Mohammed is his prophet, but cannot teach that there is only one god and Mohammed is his prophet.  Schools can teach that most Christians believe in three-gods-in-one or one-god-in-three and that they believe that Jesus is the savior, but cannot teach that Jesus is the savior.
And it matters a lot whether it is a science class or a world ideologies class.

On Friday, December 10, 2004, at 12:32  PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I will ask those who care to respond to it this question:
 
Is there any circumstance in the American public schooling context in which any of these assignments may properly be given to students?  If there are, what are they?  If there are not, why not? 
 
Jim Henderson
Senior Counsel
ACLJ

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Sufi Saying
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Re: Steven Williams Case - more factual information

2004-12-10 Thread Steven Jamar

Is it a sociology class? I think it depends a lot on purpose and presentation.

I also think that we as lawyers, having been trained in a certain kind of compartmentalization and detachment and objectivity (please don't ignore the certain kind and blast me for an assertion I am not making), underestimate the difficulty of making the distinctions that we take for granted. And the whole experience of a believer is different from that of an outsider and some believers believe that it would be untrue to their beliefs even to investigate other things or to present information they don't agree with as anything but falsehood. And some of these people are teachers.

My boys experienced a variety of incidents in schools where fundamentalists or evangeilcals and in one instance even young earther Christian teachers made explicit statements about religion and religous truth and/or taught, and in one case tested, certain things that excluded as religions anything other than Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. These were mostly social science and English teachers.

As much as they or anyone else guards against injecting beliefs into the classroom, it happens -- the time together is just so extensive and intensive. So we need to cut a bit of slack for those sorts of things.

But there comes a time when the teachers go over the line in assignments or comments or whatever. And this seems to be one of them. But I would really need to know all about it to make that decision.

There are those on this list who have in the past opined that it is not possible to teach about religion without demeaning believers in the process -- it is, to them, inherent it teaching about instead of teaching the truth of it. That level of paranoia or thin-skinnedness or world view or whatever motivates those sorts of comments cannot be responded to effectively. There is no way around that world view. But that does not make that world view the right one or grant it a unit veto over the rest of us who want to understand each other.

Steve

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

Mark Twain
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Re: Steven Williams Case - more factual information

2004-12-10 Thread Steven Jamar

On Friday, December 10, 2004, at 02:27  PM, Ed Brayton wrote:
Steven Jamar wrote:
Is it a sociology class? I think it depends a lot on purpose and 
presentation.
Mr. Williams teaches 5th grade.
I should have been more clear -- I was responding to Henderson's 
inquiry about could such an assignment ever be ok.

Ed Brayton
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In these words I can sum up everything I've learned about life:  It 
goes on.

Robert Frost
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Re: Coercion and religious exemptions

2004-11-29 Thread Steven Jamar

No single concept, whether coercion or accommodation or equality or equal treatment or any other concept that has been advocated as the way in which to analyze EC or FE problems is sufficient. Hence my advocacy of an approach that clearly articulates the principles to be used and the interests to be considered leaving the hard work of judging to judges. Some bright lines will emerge either immediately or over time, but such a nuanced approach is the only way to begin to make sense of what the Court actually does and is the best way (IMHO) to look ahead to what the court and others should do.

Steve

On Monday, November 29, 2004, at 01:44 PM, Newsom Michael wrote:

I dont think that we disagree. I dont accept Scalias view either. My point is perhaps only semantic. I dont think that the word coercion is adequate to do the work that the EC requires, i.e. to frame and shape the narratives of harm done to religious minorities.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided man.

- Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963

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Re: FW: Student reprimanded for religious absences

2004-11-24 Thread Steven Jamar

The rule is could be expelled. There is no reason to think that a
kid would be expelled only for missing 8 or 10 classes. It seems to me
that sending a notice is proper and may even be required and that
discretion in enforcement is proper as well. So, how could this rule
NOT stand -- especially if it is enforced as we all expect it to be --
without expulsion unless the pattern of absences gets really excessive.
Is risk of expulsion enough to even get past the case and controversy
standard? What if no one has ever been expelled for such circumstances?
Steve

On Wednesday, November 24, 2004, at 12:32 AM, Christopher C. Lund
wrote:

Putting aside the Indiana Free Exercise Clause, aren't there
some serious problems here under the ordinary federal Free Exercise
Clause as well?

As an initial matter, the principal claims that [s]tudents are
allowed [only] five days of excused absences per semester and that
[e]xcused absences include illness with a doctor's note, a death in
the immediate family, quarantine or court appearance. I find it hard
to believe this rule is being enforced in a generally applicable
manner. Students who miss class more than five times get expelled?
An eleven-year old child who has to have surgery or gets mono.
Expelled? Really? Exceptions to such a stringent rule will surely be
common -- which the Superintendent seems to acknowledge both when she
says that the five-absence rule could (not should or will or must)
lead to expulsion and also when she hints that the rule might be
suspended in times of emergency.
This is just a scheme of individualized exceptions, isn't it? With
strict scrutiny applying -- the real kind of strict scrutiny, not the
watered-down pre-Smith kind -- how could this rule stand?

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I care not what subject is taught if only it be taught well.
Thomas H. Huxley
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Re: Student reprimanded for religious absences

2004-11-24 Thread Steven Jamar

Smith was wrongly decided and religious belief and practices 
inadequately protected.  Let me be clear about my position on that.  
But even under strict scrutiny the courts necessarily engage in 
balancing and judgment and defer in some instances to the legislature.  
That is my point which I may not  be making very clearly.  The balance 
of government interest, extent of  interference, other feasible 
alternatives, magnitude of the interests of the claimant happen all the 
time in strict scrutiny or in any other sort of scrutiny.  At some 
point deference is shown; at some point it is not.  To me, this is a 
slam-dunk for the government under wrong-headed Smith; it becomes close 
under strict scrutiny.  And for the record, if an expulsion were to 
occur under these facts, then I would find a violation.  Until that 
actually happened, I would use ripeness to avoid the issue.  Of course 
the state courts probably do not have that doctrine available to them.  
So in such an instance I would decide in favor of the religious 
adherents, but as narrowly as possible.
But those are a bunch of I statements, not statements of what I think 
the law requires as it stands.
Steve

On Wednesday, November 24, 2004, at 12:48  AM, Volokh, Eugene wrote:
I'm puzzled.  Steve, you say that you aren't wild about Smith -- but 
these are precisely the arguments that are made in favor of Smith:  
Who can tell when an exemption would really dramatically undermine a 
compelling government interest?  Why courts instead of elected 
officials?  Or, borrowing from Paul's argument, what do we do when 
other people raise other claims, which are different but which may not 
be easy to distinguish in a principled way?

It seems to me that the whole point of strict scrutiny in religious 
freedom cases is that courts rather than elected officials *are* 
supposed to determine when an exemption would substantially impair the 
government interest:  That's precisely the point of, for instance, 
Wisconsin v. Yoder.  Likewise, they are supposed to grant exemptions 
in cases where they don't substantially impair the interest, and leave 
hypothetical future cases for a future day, see Sherbert v. Verner; 
Smith (Blackmun dissenting), unless there's reason to think that the 
exemption is so tempting that there really will be a flood of claims, 
or great difficulty with sorting the sincere from the insincere, see 
Gillette; Lee.

Now of course one could reject Smith generally, but say that it's 
right for K-12 education.  Free Speech Clause jurisprudence, for 
instance, does treat the government as K-12 educator more favorably 
than the government as sovereign.  But why exactly would such a regime 
make sense as to these sorts of claims, where the usual Tinker/Fraser 
concerns about disruption or vulgarity don't apply?

Eugene
	-Original Message-
	From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Steven Jamar
	Sent: Tue 11/23/2004 11:01 PM
	To: Law  Religion issues for Law Academics
	Cc:
	Subject: Re: Student reprimanded for religious absences
	
	
	Ok. Shifting targets are harder to hit. Who is to decide when 
substantial impairment kicks in? What authority is there that that is 
the standard of evaluation? And why courts instead of elected 
officials?
	And again, why should someone be allowed to skip school for a 
ceremony that is not needed or compelled by one's religious beliefs 
any more than skipping school for hunting or laziness?

On Tuesday, November 23, 2004, at 10:51 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
		Eight days out of 180, that's less than the one sick day a month 
customary for many employed people. Yes, there is other learning that 
goes on in schools, but is that other learning (aside from that 
indicated by grades) so concentrated that missing this amount of 
school is likely to impair it substantially.  Frances Paterson

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	I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. . . . Injustice 
anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Martin Luther King, Jr., (1963)

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Re: Student reprimanded for religious absences

2004-11-24 Thread Steven Jamar

Huh?
On Wednesday, November 24, 2004, at 11:32 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

In a message dated 11/24/2004 11:18:54 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

But are the rules neutral?

In fact, does the focus have to be on how majoritarian religions are accommodated by the force of calendar and tradition? If the policy says students may be expelled rather than shall be, I think the foundation of a credible nonneutrality argument is well-laid.

Jim Henderson
Senior Counsel
ACLJ
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But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o mice an men
Gang aft agley,
An leae us nought but grief an pain,
For promisd joy!

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Re: Student reprimanded for religious absences

2004-11-24 Thread Steven Jamar

I haven't seen anyone say that students ought not be accommodated for some limited number of religious holy days. So I think there is general agreement on that part of it. And I think that getting school boards to recognize holidays as excused absences makes a lot of sense. It seems that any organized religion would be able to notify the school in advance of the school year to inform the school of when its adherents would be required or strongly expected to attend and miss school. Then it would be a matter of the family notifying the school ahead of time that their children will miss those days. There are lots of ways to work this out as a practical matter without resort to making an attendance policy a constitutional case. Of course no matter how clever and careful and flexible the system, there will be abuses and there will be borderline cases and individualized religions and understandings of requirements. One cannot really do a Christian calendar or a Jewish one or Muslim and be sure to get it right for every sect. Or any particular sect.

I remain unconvinced that the warning that you should not miss more school and that if you do, you might be expelled, constitutes a violation of free exercise rights under a strict scrutiny regime or under Smith. This one would turn on facts that we don't know -- but on what I know, I don't think I would enjoin the school district from enforcing its rule ahead of time.

Steve

Love the pitcher less and the water more.

Sufi Saying
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Re: Student reprimanded for religious absences

2004-11-23 Thread Steven Jamar

Surely education is a compelling state interest and requiring attendance as a part of that and setting an attendance policy is within the discretion of the school board.  This is a decision not for the courts.  
At some point there needs to be some accommodation.  But it cannot be an accommodation that requires missing a full week of school each year.
Should the school district amend its rules and provide greater accommodation for students of various religious backgrounds?  Surely.  Should courts step in and make it a matter of constitutional right?  I would tread that ground very, very cautiously.

Steve


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Example is always more efficacious than precept.

Samuel Johnson, 1759
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Re: Student reprimanded for religious absences

2004-11-23 Thread Steven Jamar

But then where does the court draw the line? 8 days? 14? 20? What is the least restrictive alternative to requiring attendance? They aren't home schooling-- they are asking to be exempted from truly generally applicable neutral rules.

Steve

On Tuesday, November 23, 2004, at 06:57 PM, Volokh, Eugene wrote:

I'm puzzled by how this argument would be reconciled with traditional strict scrutiny analysis, which is what the Indiana Constitution seems to call for. Is it really the case that expelling students for missing 8 days of school is *necessary* to accomplish the compelling state interest in providing an adequate education to students? The case for accommodation here seems much stronger than, say, in Wisconsin v. Yoder (though I realize that there are distinctions between the two cases).
Or is the argument that strict scrutiny should not apply in K-12 education?
Eugene

Nothing that is worth anything can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.

Reinhold Neibuhr

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Re: Student reprimanded for religious absences

2004-11-23 Thread Steven Jamar

The examples we trot out show why courts try not to decide hypothetical
cases.
I am not a fan of Smith and I really think the state should be required
to accommodate reasonable requests. Just what constitutes a least
restrictive alternative does, of course, vary with the magnitude of
the state's interest as well as with the importance (howsoever
calculated) of the interest claimed by the religious adherent. Though
I am a proponent of accommodation in this sort of situation, I am much
less certain that it should be a court-imposed accommodation and I am
much less certain that even strict scrutiny will throw out the state's
chosen method of protecting its interest here, though it may in fact do
exactly that.
I think Mr. Henderson's remark completely misses the mark -- the state
need not defend all of its decisions on the basis of strict scrutiny
and history and tradition and current desires are plenty good enough to
support the decisions of the school board as to school year and number
of days and absences policies and all the rest. The only question is
to what extent an exception MUST be carved out when faced with a
religious claim based upon a discretionary religious observance -- the
adherents have a choice of attending or not.
I think the school board should, as a matter of policy, in general
permit this exception. But then the problem arises of drawing the line
the next time. Compulsory education, compulsory attendance are the
rules. School is not really an oh, I think I'll drop in today sort
of proposition. (Except during hunting season where I grew up -- an
amazing amount of hunter's flu excuses showed up during hunting
season (illness absences were excused, hunting absences were not).)

Steve
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James Truslow Adams
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Re: Student reprimanded for religious absences

2004-11-23 Thread Steven Jamar

Well, if that were the test, my kids could have attended the first day, come in for the tests, and played the rest of the time.  As could about 15-20% of the students.  If all we are concerned about is grades.  But that is not the only learning going on in school, is it.

On Tuesday, November 23, 2004, at 09:24  PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

One issue that has not been raised is this student's grades. If he can miss school without any impairment of his academic performance, then where is the compelling state interest? Frances Paterson


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Never doubt that the work of a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, its the only thing that ever has.

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Re: Student reprimanded for religious absences

2004-11-23 Thread Steven Jamar

Ok. Shifting targets are harder to hit. Who is to decide when substantial impairment kicks in? What authority is there that that is the standard of evaluation? And why courts instead of elected officials?
And again, why should someone be allowed to skip school for a ceremony that is not needed or compelled by one's religious beliefs any more than skipping school for hunting or laziness?

On Tuesday, November 23, 2004, at 10:51 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Eight days out of 180, that's less than the one sick day a month customary for many employed people. Yes, there is other learning that goes on in schools, but is that other learning (aside from that indicated by grades) so concentrated that missing this amount of school is likely to impair it substantially. Frances Paterson

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Re: Florida Voucher Decision

2004-11-13 Thread Steven Jamar

It is lawful to discriminate for and against religions. Indeed the
Constitution mandates EXACTLY that.

The government can establish lots of things (or seek to), e.g.,
patriotism, individualism, tolerance. But it cannot establish
religion. It therefore must discriminate in what it chooses to
establish on the basis, at least in part, of religion.

The government can ban all sorts of behavior and can zone property in
all sorts of ways. But it cannot zone in such a way as to exclude all
religious buildings or activity. It could prohibit all multiple-unit
dwellings. Or all heavy industry. Or all educational institutions.
But it can't do that with respect to religion. This is discrimination
for religion.

Discrimination is not a sufficiently robust concept to handle the
inevitable conflicts and nuances involved in religious cases.

The principles of non-discrimination and equal treatment have their
place in constitutional religious freedom analysis, but they are not
sufficient. Nor is accommodation. Nor is coercion. Nor is separation.

The tension exposed in no-taxpayer support v. non-discrimination in the
voucher cases can be resolved either by favoring one theory over the
other a la the Rosenberger case (favoring equal treatment over no
funding) or through some other balancing approach which forthrightly
recognizes the conflict and chooses not to go one way or the other on
the basis of selecting which principle has priority, but rather
choosing, in the Justice O'Connor mode, a nuanced, case by case
analysis in which such principles play a part in the decision.

Of course this does not give us bright-line tests, which in itself
creates problems.

But this, it seems to me, is the very nature of the beast and it cannot
be tamed or beaten out of it no matter how many of us try to dance on
the head of that metaphorical pin of logical consistency.

Prof. Goler Teal Butcher, after Reinhold Neibuhr
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Re: Evidence of religious conversion at a death penalty sentencinghearing

2004-11-12 Thread Steven Jamar

But Eugene, doesn't your solicitude for individuated, non-group focused 
jurisprudence in the area of rights trump everything for you here, like 
it has nearly always done for the S Ct in the death penalty cases?  
That is, every fact matters, and group-based analysis (one religious 
group or another) is per se not relevant?

I'm not arguing for this position, just surprised to see Eugene seem to 
take a position so at odds with his typical individual rights positions.

Steve
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I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three 
meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, 
and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.

Martin Luther King, Jr., (1964, on accepting the Nobel Peace Prize)
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Re: Religion of peace?

2004-11-12 Thread Steven Jamar

Buddhism.
On Friday, November 12, 2004, at 12:26  PM, Paul Finkelman wrote:
Except for the Society of Friends, the Mennonites and a few other 
pietistic faiths, please tell me what religion out there qualifies as 
a religion of peace?

Pual Finkelman
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Politics hates a vacuum.  If it isn't filled with hope, someone will 
fill it with fear.

Naomi Klein
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Re: Pamphlets in schools

2004-11-09 Thread Steven Jamar

Surely explaining why some students find it objectionable is ok -- teaching tolerance and understanding cannot be wrong. But there would be a line somewhere when the explanation becomes instruction not to do it at all that might be a problem.

Steve

On Tuesday, November 9, 2004, at 09:39 AM, marc stern wrote:

In discussing this matter further with my client, he reported (of course without having asked first) suggesting to the school district that it should engage in an effort to explain to students why targeted leafleting of the sort we have been discussing is objectionable to some students. Is that permissible? Desirable? Subject the school to suit?
Marc Stern

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Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite a virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

Reinhold Neibuhr

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Re: Pamphlets at School

2004-11-05 Thread Steven Jamar

Can a school teach respect for diversity and tolerance for difference
and teach civility and respect for others' beliefs without targeting
those who say everyone else is damned and seeking to quash such speech
on campus?

I fear that one of the problems is the desire for neat, clear,
bright-line answers instead of recognition of the full complexity of
everyday interactions and beliefs. Students may well have a right to
be free from harassment, but who decides and on what standard? Is it
the person who is targeted? Is it that person's subjective response?
Does it matter if it is a group targeting another group (I know Eugene
does not believe in any sort of group-based analysis in this area) as
opposed to individuals in conversation?

Some people have highly sensitive antennas -- like Woody Allen's
character in many of his movies with the Jew who hears Jewish slurs
everywhere -- e.g., D'you eat yet is heard as Jew! Eat yet! Is
that the standard?

Or is it the result of a poll with majority rule? Many whites in many
parts of the country said nr thoughtlessly -- not with subjective
ill will. If the poll showed that they did not associate it with being
derogatory does that make it all right?

Can we distinguish between evangelism and proselytizing? Can we
distinguish between information and advocacy? Should we?

When we are called upon to advise our schools on such behavior, do we
educate about nuance or just say no?

A strange twist has been at work where those who decry the expulsion of
religion from schools have created the monster they feared -- where
teachers and principals ban the Bible completely and such.

Life is not so simple. And some of these sorts of interactions are the
very stuff of life in school.

But in my experience the majority all too often are insensitive to the
sensibilities of the minorities and see nothing intimidating or wrong
with shunning or the HS analogs or with bold pronouncements of
solidarity with their majority faith friends, despite the likely
response of others.

The minorities live with things those of the dominant faith simply, as
a whole, don't recognize exists and can't seem to understand. Though
I reject my colleague's positing the existence of a Protestant Empire
as an accurate or even helpful heuristic device in most instances, in
this instance, I think it apt. My kids went through schools where this
was the case and they were pretty bright and strong-willed and able and
willing to defend themselves for the most part. But why should they
need to be in a situation where that need to defend themselves is a
constant part of life?

This is, it seems to me, what teaching tolerance is all about -- not
accepting everyone's beliefs as equal, but respecting the differences
and not condemning them through word or action -- such as
proselytization.

A bit of a ramble. Sorry.
Steve
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Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided
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- Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963
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Re: Required to stand for the Pledge?

2004-09-10 Thread Steven Jamar

Ann,
I appreciate your post and sympathize with your conundrum of what
happened in class. But it seems to me that to encourage showing
respect, the principal should have talked to the teacher and the other
students about respecting the minority beliefs of the affected student,
not the other way around!

Why is OK to single out the different one to require her to show
respect to the others in accordance with what they (the majority) think
is right? Refusing to stand on religious grounds does not show
disrespect. And it is not uncivil, as it appears your student may have
been.

BTW, why not talk to the offended person and suggest that she both
toughen up and lighten up a bit and show some tolerance for others who
may not yet be as enlightened as she is? People should speak with the
understanding that what they say and the way the say it and where they
say it matters. But people should also listen with compassion and the
understanding that not all of us express ourselves perfectly or exactly
as someone else would like us to (or even as we would like to) all the
time.

Steve
This seems like an excellent example of a good time for the school to
just give an apology. But I wonder if there is any legal violation in
talking to students about the advisability of being respectful to the
feelings and beliefs of the other students. We were discussing US v.
Lee in my Religion and the Law class yesterday, and one of the
students was characterizing the Amish in a way that was a bit derisive
and another student snapped at him. That was the first time in 3 years
of teaching the course that there was ever any discomfort in talking
about the sensitive topic of religion. As the class was leaving, I
motioned him over and said something to the effect that people in the
class are used to a tradition of speaking very respectfully about
religious beliefs, and that he might want to tone it down lest people
get mad at him. He's a law student of course, and the girl in the news
is a middle school student, but I do feel that what I was doing was
similar to what this principal did: encouraging a student to show more
respect in the classroom.

Ann
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Years ago my mother used to say to me... 'In this world Elwood' ...
She always used to call me Elwood... 'In this world Elwood, you must be
Oh So Smart, or Oh So Pleasant.' Well for years I was smart -- I
recommend pleasant. You may quote me. --Elwood P. Dowd

- Mary Chase, Harvey, 1950
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Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust
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Re: Required to stand for the Pledge?

2004-09-10 Thread Steven Jamar

How quickly we wander far afield from the original point and stretch
what each other never intended! Surely the school can (and IMHO ought
to) teach and perhaps even inculcate respect for country. And respect
for other students. And teachers. And the UN. Treating each other
with respect is an important thing to learn.

The extent of the failure of our school system in this regard is sadly
very visible on cable news shouting matches and the op ed columns and
the words and attitudes of politicians (Zell Miller!) and their
surrogates.

Steve
On Friday, September 10, 2004, at 03:50 PM, Scarberry, Mark wrote:
Putting aside the issues raised by under God in the Pledge:
Can it be true that the school has no right to try to convince
students to
show respect for the flag and for the country?
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A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.
Emily Dickinson 1872
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Re: Required to stand for the Pledge?

2004-09-10 Thread Steven Jamar

On Friday, September 10, 2004, at 09:03 PM, Robert O'Brien wrote:

Mark Scarberry is dead on; the school can attempt to persuade the
student to say the secular parts of the Pledge. Government can lead
opinion, or attempt to, on secular matters, but not on religious
matters.
Does this not conflict with the key passage of Barnette: No public
official, high or petty, can decide what shall be orthodox in politics,
nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force others to
confess their faith therein by word or deed?
No. The government can teach all kinds of things, including respect
for country. But it cannot punish those who disagree or force
adherence to the government line.

Years ago my mother used to say to me... 'In this world Elwood' ...
She always used to call me Elwood... 'In this world Elwood, you must be
Oh So Smart, or Oh So Pleasant.' Well for years I was smart -- I
recommend pleasant. You may quote me. --Elwood P. Dowd

- Mary Chase, Harvey, 1950
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Re: FW: Interesting question: Portland Archdiocese Filing Chapter 11

2004-07-09 Thread Steven Jamar

On Friday, July 9, 2004, at 12:03 PM, Will Esser wrote:

I assume that virtually none of these fraud claims are based on an alleged explicit representation by the Diocese (i.e. As the bishop, I certify that this priest has never been involved in pedophilic activity). That leaves us with potential implied representations by the Diocese (i.e. when you send a priest to a parish, you impliedly represent that he has never been involved in pedophile activity). Would such an implied representation be supportable under the First Amendment (i.e. is it permissible for the law to imply representations by a religious organization about the qualities or qualifications of its religious ministers)?

While in the ordinary case I would agree that the court would not be able to entertain a claim about the general fitness of a priest or minister ordained by the pertinent religious organization, in this case it seems to stretch the privilege to its breaking point to say that putting a known, active pedophile in charge of children is something the church can avoid responsibility for to the child and the parents of the child. The ordination must mean something -- and even if it does not, any organization that would put the active pedophile together with kids (soccer clubs, schools, dance studios, etc.) would be liable. In this case why would the church get treated differently? Isn't this one instance where the equal treatment aspect of establishment would cut against the church? (I do not mean by this to endorse the stronger forms of equal treatment or neutrality sometimes urged by some on this list -- just that it is one factor that in particular cases may in fact determine the result.) Isn't this just the Smith case? No special exemption for the church?

I don't see dismissing the claim as a matter of law -- I think the implied theory works as it should here. Indeed, can one ever imagine a church advertising a negative like this -- Join us! Our ministers are not pedophiles! -- Not overly likely or certainly not likely to become common. This is exactly the sort of thing that the implied misrep theory is aimed at redressing.

Steve

I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. . . . Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Martin Luther King, Jr., (1963)

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Re: FW: Interesting question: Portland Archdiocese Filing Chapter 11

2004-07-09 Thread Steven Jamar

Granting of insurance by an insurance company has never been relevant in any case I ever heard of -- car, house, commercial, specialty lines, etc.

And insurance doesn't normally protect against fraud does it?

On Friday, July 9, 2004, at 12:54  PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Churches find it difficult, if not impossible, to obtain liability insurance covering these kinds of acts unless they have fairly rigorous policies and practices in place to prevent and interdict paedophile and abuse activities.  Typical are flat requirements of a background criminal check on everyone that works with, or contacts minors, for the church.  Should an implied representation be charged to a church that complies with such a rigorous program?
 
Jim Henderson
Senior Counsel
ACLJ

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Face violence if necesssary, but refuse to return violence.  If we respect those who oppose us, they may achieve a new understanding of the human relations involved.

Martin Luther King, Jr.


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Re: FW: Interesting question: Portland Archdiocese Filing Chapter 11

2004-07-07 Thread Steven Jamar

I doubt a court would tell a church to fire priests. But it could conceivably set limits on various line items in the budget, including total salaries for priests, physical plant budget, etc. Indeed, it seems it would need to so something like that. The church sought the protection of organizing itself as a corporation and it sought the protection of the courts in bankruptcy -- and it has availed itself of the benefits -- it has limits as to what it can now pick and choose.

If the church were to refuse to limit its physical plant budget, then I could see the court stepping in and looking at attendance, history, value, contributions (income), and so on.

I think the idea that the court could force the church to change into a for-profit institution is preposterous hyperbole. That it might force the church to trim its charitable actions seems likely and entirely within the proper authority of the court under these circumstances.

Let us not forget that it was the church's actions that brought about the problems for which it is finally being held accountable. It should pay for its malfeasance.

For all men of good will May 17, 1954, came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of enforced segregation. . . . It served to transform the fatigue of despair into the buoyancy of hope.

Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1960 on Brown v. Board of Education

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Re: Justice Thomas in Newdow

2004-06-18 Thread Steven Jamar

Sorry, Jim, but of course it is coercive to force an elementary or middle or high school student to publicly opt out of a REQUIREMENT.

It is not just evangelical Christians who have a hard time of it in school.  Anyone who seeks to do something different does.

Steve


 The Elk Grove School District did not and does not coerce pledging.  The state of California did not and does not coerce pledging.  There never was, in this case, a rationally justifiable fear that one who wanted not so to pledge was forced to do so.  So, I suppose I should simply have observed that there was no such coercion.  But what a boredom the language would be without color and metaphor.
 
Jim My pen takes flight, but my feet are on the ground Henderson
Senior Counsel
ACLJ

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I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.

Martin Luther King, Jr., (1964, on accepting the Nobel Peace Prize)


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Re: Justice Thomas in Newdow

2004-06-17 Thread Steven Jamar

bedrock.  Still, is there a reason why we should not concede that he 
is -- or, at least, MAY be -- correct?

Best,
Rick Garnett
The Civil War Amendments rewrote the Constitution.  People are entitled 
to protection against establishment period. Limiting the states is what 
happened with our second Constitution.  Broadening the federal power 
happened then and again with our third Constitution (New Deal-Warren 
Court).

While an academic may be excused for pondering parallel universes in 
writing, a Supreme Court Justice who does so in writing (as opposed to 
raising a point for discussion with law clerks and other judges) is 
perhaps not at the lunatic fringe, but is at at the very least near it.

What we may toss around as ideas on our listserve or in our classes or 
in person or even in serious scholarship is different from published 
opinions of the court.

Steve
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Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust 
doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for 
yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth 
corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where 
your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

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Re: The President and the Pope

2004-06-14 Thread Steven Jamar

On Monday, June 14, 2004, at 02:04 PM, Will Linden wrote:

Or if in 1967, the excommunication of Leander Perez has been preceded by a presidential colloquy seeking papal support for civil rights campaigns. (Sorry, but for years I have been driven up the wall by increasingly incoherent responses on why That Was Different).

It is different because substance, not just process, matters. The coherence or lack thereof of an analogy or distinction is based not merely on the formal structural components of what is being compared, but also on the substance of what is being compared. Depending on one's substantive values, an analogy or distinction will be more or less persuasive. To you an analogy between the unborn and the fight against slavery may seem obvious. But to find it compelling one must ignore the vast array of substantive differences between the two settings. From the other point of view, the distinctions between the two may seem compelling, but that too requires either ignoring the important similiarities or choosing to favor the distinctions over the similarities.

I find favoring the death penalty and opposing abortion to be incoherent positions. I understand the arguments made, I just don't find them persuasive. Same with FGM and male circumcision -- I understand the arguments distinguishing one from the other, I just don't find them compelling or even persuasive on a lower standard than compelling. I recognize the distinctions being drawn; I just don't think them to be valid in some cases, or sufficient in others.

So, Will, climb down off the Perez wall, and accept that what each of us find persuasive is not the same thing and what each of us find coherent will vary with underlying beliefs.

One of the incredibly difficult things constantly exposed on this list, because of who participates and because of the nature of the topics on it, is that we do not start from a common set of premises such that we can convince each other of the correctness of our positions with regularity. This is a deeper concern than the more commonplace problem (which we also regularly observe) of disagreeing about the application of the premises, even if we can agree upon what they are or should be.

Steve [avoiding-my-real-work] Jamar

When I grow up, I too will go to faraway places, and when I grow old, I too will live by the sea.
That is all very well, little Alice, said her grandfather, but there is a third thing you must do.
What is that?
You must do something to make the world more beautiful.

from Ms. Rumphius by Barbara Cooney

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Re: The quid pro quo theory

2004-06-10 Thread Steven Jamar

Sorry, but I don't see any of this as demonstrable or even as really very relevant to the interpretation of or to a consideration of the value of the religion clauses.

1. Free exercise is a valuable thing regardless of a law insuring it which affects various groups differently. The different impacts could well have a lot more to do with the content of the religion than the content of the guarantee of freedom to do it. Some beliefs and practices are simply going to be less likely to be affected by state actions, and therefore less likely to need protection from those state actions. To say one group benefits more than another seems to me to be worse than irrelevant -- it seems to be missing the essential point and seems to be likely to stir up trouble. Equality-thinking gone nuts. Or govt-focused thinking gone way too far. Or even construing an insuring provision as a grant.

2. Non-establishment similarly affects various groups in various ways. But the only way to say one group benefits more is to posit that there is a normal group against which one can or should measure.

3. How can one compare religious freedom in one state against another, except in some very crude ways, or except by a priori defining one's values into the equation? Does Italy not have religious freedom? Are non-Christian religions harmed by Swiss law (at least pre-reform law)?

Simply non-starters for me.

Gathering info and discussing things in context is one thing. Positing general theories strikes me as beyond sensible. But I still have those old practice roots which have not fully withered away despite two decades in academia.

Steve

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

- Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963

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Re: Defamation: Jews For Jesus

2004-06-05 Thread Steven Jamar

Would it be defamatory to assert, as many fundamentalist Christians do about others of different denominations, that a person who considers herself to be a Christian, is not one?

Would it be defamatory to assert, as some of my relatives do about me, that I am damned to hell because I don't believe what they believe?

It cannot be that every misstatement of another's beliefs is in fact defamatory.

Even if it is, I suspect the damages would be $1.00.

Steve

On Saturday, June 5, 2004, at 10:57  AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Yesterday, June 4, plaintiff Edith Rapp issued an amended complaint in her lawsuit against Jews for Jesus.
 
The amended complaint still constains a defamation count, this time asserting that while it would not necessarily be defamatory to depict a Christian  as belonging to  a particular Christian denomination, it is defamatory for a Jew to be portrayed as a member of a Christian denomination when she is not Christian.
 


Don Clark
Counselor at Law
Bannockburn Lake Office Plaza I
2333 Waukegan Road
Suite 160
Bannockburn, Illinois 60015-1541
847-236-0900
847-236-0909 (fax)
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A life directed chiefly toward the fulfillment of personal desires sooner or later always leads to bitter disappointment.

Albert Einstein
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Re: Defamation: Jews For Jesus

2004-06-05 Thread Steven Jamar

I take the point, to a point.  But to say someone is not a Christian is 
not just a characterization of the beliefs of that person.  It is a 
status statement -- that so and so is not in fact what she claims to be 
-- is not in fact a Christian.

On Saturday, June 5, 2004, at 11:19  AM, Volokh, Eugene wrote:
I continue to be somewhat skeptical of the defamation claim, for 
reasons I mentioned before.  But I don't think the examples below are 
quite analogous:  Both of them involve statements of opinion about (1) 
how to characterize a person's beliefs, and (2) the spiritual 
consequences of those beliefs.  They do not involve statements of fact 
about what indeed a person believes, which is what the allegation in 
this case is.

Taking this outside the religion area, the allegations in the Jews for 
Jesus case involving something like someone saying X is a member of 
the Democratic Party or X has told me he always votes Democrat; the 
examples below are like someone saying X's beliefs aren't really 
compatible with what Democrats should believe or X's policies are 
lousy for this country.

Eugene
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Steven Jamar
Sent: Sat 6/5/2004 11:08 AM
To: Law  Religion issues for Law Academics
Cc:
Subject: Re: Defamation: Jews For Jesus

	Would it be defamatory to assert, as many fundamentalist Christians 
do about others of different denominations, that a person who 
considers herself to be a Christian, is not one?

	Would it be defamatory to assert, as some of my relatives do about 
me, that I am damned to hell because I don't believe what they  believe?

	It cannot be that every misstatement of another's beliefs is in fact 
defamatory.

Even if it is, I suspect the damages would be $1.00.
Steve
On Saturday, June 5, 2004, at 10:57 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
		Yesterday, June 4, plaintiff Edith Rapp issued an amended complaint 
in her lawsuit against Jews for Jesus.
		The amended complaint still constains a defamation count, this time 
asserting that while it would not necessarily be defamatory to depict 
a Christian  as belonging to  a particular Christian denomination, it 
is defamatory for a Jew to be portrayed as a member of a Christian 
denomination when she is not Christian.

		Don Clark
		Counselor at Law
		Bannockburn Lake Office Plaza I
		2333 Waukegan Road
		Suite 160
		Bannockburn, Illinois 60015-1541
		847-236-0900
		847-236-0909 (fax)
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	A life directed chiefly toward the fulfillment of personal desires 
sooner or later always leads to bitter disappointment.

Albert Einstein
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No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human 
hopes than a public library.

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Re: And proselytizing Re: religious indoctrination

2004-06-03 Thread Steven Jamar

Don't forget discriminating.
Although sometimes some people use words to label another's views 
negatively, or at least in the sense of I disagree, that is not the 
only (or main) way those same words are used outside the political 
arena, or at least inside academic or serious discussion groups.  If 
one goes too far down the philosopher's game of trying to define every 
word and every nuance of every word and every possible interpretation 
of every possible word or if one goes too far down the pop-psyche game 
of seeing the psychological bias or motive behind each word, 
substantive communication becomes nearly impossible, or so tedious that 
many will be excluded from it.

I think we can agree that being judgmental is generally used in a 
negative way -- you are being improperly or inappropriately or unfairly 
judgmental -- as is the term discriminating, -- despite their more 
narrow, possibly acceptable uses which do not carry the negative 
connotation.

Where we appear to disagree in part is the umph we put upon such words 
as proselytizing.  I find it accurate and descriptive though I don't 
like it to be done to me univited -- so in that sense I do consider it 
a negative thing to do -- but disguising proselytizing with words like 
sharing the good news does not change the nature of the act one bit.  
And I dislike it just as much.  Even when it is someone with whom I 
substantively agree.

Steve

On Wednesday, June 2, 2004, at 10:34  PM, Francis Beckwith wrote:
On 6/2/04 9:08 PM, Steven Jamar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Speak for yourself.  That is not how I use the words or how many 
people
I regularly discuss things with use them.  Your assumption that that 
is
how they are being used creates problems.
That would make me sectarian. :-)  All kidding aside, what I was 
trying to
say--in a somewhat humorous way--is that sometimes we use words (and I
include myself here) in ways that disguise disputed beliefs so that we 
don't
have to defend them.  So, my guy shares the good news, the other guy
proselytizes; my faith is a relationship whereas the other guy's 
is a
religion;  I believe in principles while the other fellow embraces
dogmas.  The one I particularly like is the guy who condemns being
judgmental, which of course, requires a judgment.

Frank

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Sufi Saying
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Re: Tax On Theology Majors

2004-05-27 Thread Steven Jamar


On Thursday, May 27, 2004, at 10:49  AM, Rick Duncan wrote:
I think the point is that from an economic
perspective, there is little or no difference between
a targeted $1,000 tax and a targeted exclusion from a
generally available $1,000 benefit.
One difference in practice would be that all the targets get hit with 
the tax whereas only a few would take advantage of the benefit.

Another is forcing someone to do something (pay tax) versus allowing 
someone to choose something.

There are real differences both economic and otherwise.
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It is by education I learn to do by choice, what other men do by the 
constraint of fear.

Aristotle
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Re: not defamatory to call Jew a believer in Jesus

2004-05-17 Thread Steven Jamar

i haven't studied it for awhile, but i don't recall the test for defamation being how the person feels about it, but rather how others perceive it. unless it is defamation per se. it seems pretty unlikely that accusing someone of believing in Jesus is on a par with saying he or she has a loathsome disease.

On Monday, May 17, 2004, at 07:42 PM, Paul Finkelman wrote:

Do we know anything about the judge in this case; I realize judges are *supposed* to not bring their religious beliefs into the courtroom, but having testified against Chief Justice Roy Moore of Alabama, I know that is not always the case. Perhaps this judge is so certain of her own religous views that she cannot comprehend how anyone would find such an allegation offensive or defamatory.
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There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live.

James Truslow Adams

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Re: Locke and Rosenberger

2004-04-15 Thread Steven Jamar

I think part of the reason for the cursory treatment of Rosenberger is 
that Rosenberger really is not as broad or likely to be expanded or 
extended beyond its particular facts as advocates of the majority 
decision would like it to be.

There is a difference between the religion clauses and speech clauses 
and Rick's hypo demonstrates this well.

Steve


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The only things truly worth doing cannot be accomplished in a single 
lifetime.

Prof. Goler Teal Butcher, after Reinhold Neibuhr

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Re: Under God

2004-03-30 Thread Steven Jamar

Ah, philosophy!

One can see things in human nature and not say that they are from god. One can assert natural rights without claiming they come from god.

It surprises me how utilitarian the argument for under God has become - it is useful to limit government by explicitly saying it is subject to a higher power. Even if the utilitarian argument is granted, government could be subject not to a Zeus with thunderbolts but rather to an inherent dignity of human beings.

Even natural law need not have God as its source.

And many very moral people are atheists. And some immoral people are not. One need not have god around to limit bad behavior or to spark good.

I reject the historical and utilitarian and philosophical premises for including under God. I think it a blatant example of the government favoring religion over non-religion. Same with god on money and prayers opening legislative sessions and politicians sometimes sincere, often cynical, appeals to god.

But, I don't think the constitution requires all of these things to disappear - the trivial nature of most seems to be ok. But pledging allegiance and forced recital and even forced constant hearing of a nation under god seems too far.

And let us not play games about which god they had in mind when it was enacted.

Steve

I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and nonviolence are as old as the hills.

Gandhi

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UU ministers arrested

2004-03-16 Thread Steven Jamar

Two Unitarian Universalist Ministers were arrested in NY for performing same-sex marriages under the power granted them by the state, not just as religious unions.  Of course the typical faultlines are exposed - including claims of violation of separation of church and state.  But surely that cannot be true - this is a simple case of a prosecutor interpreting the State and Federal Constitutions to permit this sort of gender discrimination in marriage - and so enforcing the law as he interprets it.

What always strikes me as curious in these are the cries of upholding the law - as if the constitutions were not law, and indeed superior law at that.

Anyway does anyone see an establishment problem with these prosecutions that I am missing?

washington post article is at

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61436-2004Mar15.html

Steve
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A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.

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Re: UU ministers arrested

2004-03-16 Thread Steven Jamar

Here is what another article said:

Unitarian Universalist ministers Kay Greenleaf and Dawn Sangrey were charged with multiple counts of solemnizing a marriage without a license, the same charges leveled against New Paltz Mayor Jason West, who last month drew the state into the widening national debate over same-sex unions. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60290-2004Mar15.html?nav=headlines
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The aim of education must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who, however, see in the service to the community their highest life achievement.

Albert Einstein
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Re: UU ministers arrested

2004-03-16 Thread Steven Jamar

Since the reports are not done by the folk on this list it is sometimes hard to be sure of the facts in the way we would like to be. But after spending way to much time drifting around on this, I think this much is correct (but am definitely not going to stand by it as fully correct- no doubt more will come clear later).

1. The ministers performed a religious ceremony.
2. The ministers intended to also perform the civil marriage under their authority to do so as granted by the state.
3. The two celebrants did not present a valid marriage license (if they presented one at all, it could not be a valid one since they were of the same sex).
4. The ministers assert that the marriage is binding both as a religious matter and on the State of New York.

This last point is based on various news reports and requires some inference on my part.

5. NY Law makes it a crime to marry people who do not have a state-granted license to do so.
6. The ministers did so anyway.

7. The prosecutor could have taken the approach of these marriages will not be recognized by any state or other entity, and so they are just symbolic and are void as a matter of civil law, so either, no law was in fact broken, or if it was, it ought not be prosecuted. But he didn't. He chose to escalate the issue.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided man.

- Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963

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Re: NRO Article

2004-03-15 Thread Steven Jamar

I hope no one takes seriously

1.	that the editor of the harvard law review is so easily cowed or
2.	that any single academic has such power to ruin another's career

two over-the-top points made in the nro article.

Seems being over the top and alarmist is not all on one side.


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If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him.  An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.

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Re: NRO Article

2004-03-15 Thread Steven Jamar

I suppose one could point to the failure to examine the premises of Beckwith's book may be one. Passing off as a scholarly examination something which is really an apologist's essay may be a bit fraudulent. Sorta like pretending many commentators are in fact reporters. Though I don't believe that opinions can be fully separated from facts or vice versa, I do think we have an obligation to at least try to make clear what we are doing and why. That seems to me to be the bigger problem with this polemic.

BTW, while one may believe that intelligent design is not completely excludable as a possibility by evolution theories, that belief does not make it science. And much of the so-called evidence for intelligent design and supposedly against evolution has in fact been rebutted many times over. And presenting it as though it were all correct or valid science could be a species of that protean concept of fraud.

Biological science, at least at the pre-college level, is not about philosophical possibilities. And we ought not require science teachers to enter that minefield more than necessary.

Steve

On Monday, March 15, 2004, at 05:24 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

And let none of the many law professors who are readers of this site be mistaken: Mr. VanDyke has perpetrated a scholarly fraud, one that may have political and pedagogical consequences (italics mine).
What is the specific fraud that Leiter complains about?
Bobby
Robert Justin Lipkin
Professor of Law
Widener University School of Law
Delaware
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The modern trouble is in a low capacity to believe in precepts which restrict and restrain private interests and desires.

Walter Lippmann
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Re: Religious history school projects

2004-03-11 Thread Steven Jamar

The First Amendment issue would seem to turn on subjective intent here. Mission architecture, and the missions themselves are an important part of the history of California. So if the intention is to make students more aware of architecture and architectural influences of the missions on modern California, that is ok. Likewise for history.

If the intent is to make students Catholic, or even generic Christian, that would be a violation.

If the intent is to make students aware of particular religions, in this case Christian generally and Catholic specifically, then it seems a closer question. But given the legitimate motives, or at least the availability of them, I don't see much of a problem here in the abstract.

But some teacher could certainly take it over the line. Like a creationist one of my sons had for social studies around 8th grade who defined religion in a way that excluded all but Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and marked other answers on the multiple guess question wrong. Any legitimate purpose for a good aim can be perverted.

Steve

On Thursday, March 11, 2004, at 03:49 PM, Will Linden wrote:

However, it drew yet another post noting that In California the 4th graders have to do a California Missions project, and often they go on a field trip to see a Mission. I have never heard of anyone of refusing to build a Mission project on religious grounds. Since the Missions, like the Ziggurats, are part of the history curriculum, it would be an interesting question. I agree that it would, and herewith ask opinions of the list on whether the Mission unit raises First Amendment issues.

Matthew 6:19-21
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Re: RLUIPA, was RE: Potentially Important California State Case

2004-03-01 Thread Steven Jamar

Religion is a special category. It is treated specially in the Constitution and in IHR instruments and in constitutions worldwide.

NIMBY ought not be allowed to reign for siting religious structures. There ought to be good space zoned for religious groups to meet. And for certain size groups, homes should be ok too.

We ought to encourage beneficent organizations. We need not make every parcel into a tax-free church. But I know of no community where that has in fact occurred. What I see far more often is states and communities competing to give tax free land and other advantages to employers to locate in their communities. I don't see that changing.

In short, I think Marci's concern with respect to tax base is misplaced and has next to nothing to do with constitutional issues. And I don't think religious anything can be left to pure majoritarianism.

And finally, in my experience, many zoning boards and land (ab)use committees are either beholding to the monied interests or engage in petty actions just because they can - especially when it affects less popular things like religious buildings of certain types and sizes.

Last time I looked as zoning schemes, they were impenetrable, detailed, and riddled with nonsense with multiple layers of commercial, industrial, residential, and on and on. And they ALWAYS give way when the big guys move in and want a change. Always.

No, some constitutional restraint on our lesser angels is necessary or not only would there be no place at the inn, there would be no (religious) inn.

The reader's particular community excepted, of course.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided man.

- Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963

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Re: Maine History: An Opportunity for Cheap Jabs?

2003-12-08 Thread Steven Jamar

FWIW, I did not use the term creationists pretty much for the reasons proffered by Eugene. And also because I cannot prove, scientifically or otherwise, that there is no creator and that there are no ongoing acts of interference by a creator in the ordinary activity of evolution. I believe that there is no creator, but that is not saying the same thing as there cannot be one. Since I cannot disprove the existence of such a creator, it seems to me that it would be appropriate for a teacher to consider the arguments of intelligent design advocates in a science course. But it would be more appropriate to leave them out as being quite fully outside the bounds of modern scientific understanding.

But to be a young earther one must reject huge amounts of physics, chemistry, astronomy, and biology in ways I cannot accept as within the bounds. And so I think the narrow analogy is apt.

But to return to the thread, the facts of the case really matter and would affect my assessment of the situation. I do not think one needs to teach all about Islam and Confucianism and Hinduism and Buddhism and Judaism, or even much about them or their cultures to teach something useful about European history. But I think any version of European history - great person, intellectual, political, social, economic, cultural, religious, what-have-you - can be enriched by some added perspectives.

Steve

On Monday, December 8, 2003, at 04:21 PM, Eugene Volokh wrote:

Two thoughts:
(1) I was under the impression that most modern supporters of teaching either intelligent design or creationism more broadly specifically *distanced* themselves from young earthers, which is to say people who believe that the earth is only several thousand years old. I had assumed that the post specifically mentioned young earthers rather than creationists for that very reason. Am I mistaken?

A word must become a friend or you will not understand it. Perhaps you do well to be cool and detached when you are seeking information, but I remind you of the wife who complained, 'When I ask John if he loves me, he thinks I am asking for information.'

Sir Edward Coke, Case of Swans, 7 Rep. 15, 17 (1592)
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Re: Maine suit on history curriculum

2003-12-07 Thread Steven Jamar


On Sunday, December 7, 2003, at 08:37 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

I think this falls into the oh, good grief! category.

or perhaps, given the teacher's attorney's name, the good Greif  category.  :)


Here's the story as listed at the First Amendment Center:

Maine teacher sues district over curriculum restrictions

He cant even teach the history of anti-Semitism (or the) history of ancient Greece, Coles lawyer, A.J. Greif of Bangor, said.



-- 
Prof. Steven D. Jamar   vox:  202-806-8017
Howard University School of Law fax:  202-806-8567
2900 Van Ness Street NW   mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Washington, DC  20008   http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar/

The aim of education must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who, however, see in the service to the community their highest life achievement.

Albert Einstein
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